On The Home Front
by NiffAreForever
Summary: When the Second World War breaks out on 3rd September 1939, 17 year old Nick Duval is evacuated from London to the Kentish countryside. Nick must learn to adapt to country life, and, despite resisting it at first, he discovers that maybe everything won't be too bad when local boy Jeff Sterling falls, literally, into his life! Evacuee!Niff AU
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is the first chapter of my new story, ****_On The Home Front_****, and I hope that you will all enjoy it :) I do not own the first line of this chapter, that belongs to Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister in 1939, and it is part of his declaration of war speech.**

**If you are happy to just read this story, you can skip this, but I did want to put this here just in case some people had doubts:**

**This story is set during the Second World War, and I do know that wars in general can be a very difficult subject for some people, however, this is about the evacuees in Britain at the time, and will be set almost entirely in London or Kent. There will be references to the war, as this is unavoidable, but at no point will there be any scene of graphic violence (if there is any violence, like bombing, you will be warned at the start of the relevant chapter) nor will there be any scenes that describe actual fights between soldiers on the battlefield, but there will be references to soldiers in general (if this changes, I will notify you). **

**Thank you for understanding, I just thought I should explain this.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee and I do not own Neville Chamberlain's speech.**

* * *

_"…no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently, this country is at war with Germany."_

Nick Duval watched motionlessly as his mother put her head in her hands and sighed heavily, while his father just shook his head in defeat.

"Turn it off, son," he said, and so Nick reached over to switch the wireless off.

In just a few sentences, their lives had just been turned upside down.

War.

What did that even mean would happen? Nick hadn't been born when the Great War had occurred, but he knew that his father had been called up to fight when they were desperate for men fit enough for active duty. And he knew that neither of his parents ever explicitly said anything on the subject, but somehow the war had changed his father. In what way, he could not say, for he'd only ever known his father the way that he was now, but he'd heard his relatives talking about it when they thought no one was near.

"War's a terrible thing, Nicholas," his father always said, "You just remember that. Nothing good ever comes of war, you mark my words."

Nick had always done so, but now he didn't think that he'd have a choice; he couldn't just back out of this national issue, could he?

No, it wasn't possible to just turn his back on what was happening in his own country, for that made him feel even worse, as though he was almost betraying his fellow countrymen.

"What are we going to do, John?" Nick's mother asked, looking at her husband as though she was desperately hoping that everything could be resolved with just a simple plea.

"We have to carry out all the procedures that we had put in place earlier in the year," Nick's father replied, "I guess we all knew that this was inevitable really, we just didn't want to believe it."

"Oh, John, must you talk so easily of this war?"

"Celia, there's nothing else to be done, we simply must face the facts," Nick's father looked sympathetically across at his wife. "Now, about those arrangements?"

Nick's mother dried her eyes and nodded.

"Well, Nick will have to go away, of course," she said, "That's always been the plan."

Nick's head snapped up at the sound of his name.

"Mum!" he groaned, "You weren't serious about that, were you?"

"Of course your mother was serious, Nicholas," his father replied quickly, "You know that the agreement was that if war was declared, then you'd be sent away to the country."

"But, Dad, all my friends are still here!" Nick protested, "I can't just go to the country, where I won't know anyone, while all my friends are having fun back here in London without me!"

"Nick, dear, you know that Thad and Sebastian are also going away as well, and you'll all be going together," his mother said gently, "You don't have to worry about missing your friends."

"I have more than two friends, Mum," Nick said, "And anyway, there's a new film showing at the pictures this week, and we thought that we'd…"

"Nicholas, I don't know whether you're being deliberately insolent, or you are actually extremely naïve, but do you think that wanting to go to the _pictures_ is more important than a _war_?" John Duval snapped suddenly.

Both Nick and his mother jumped.

"John, I think this has been a shock for all of us, Nick included," Celia said calmly, "I'm sure that he didn't mean anything by what he said, and he's just trying to hold onto some normality while he can."

"Well, maybe he should think before speaking," Nick's father muttered, but he didn't look like he was going to contest with his wife's defence of their son.

Nick sighed, and watched as his mother led his father from the room, murmuring something to him as they went.

It was times like this that he was sure that the war had done something to his father.

He didn't have a bad relationship with John Duval, but it was often a difficult one. His father had always been the one to help him with his homework when he got into difficulty with it, and he would patiently sit with him for hours until he understood. However, as soon as it came to sport or leisure activities with his friends, his father would become a different person; he didn't approve of Sebastian, that was obvious, and he barely tolerated Thad, which baffled Nick to no end, because who could dislike _Thad_? And then of course there were the activities that they participated in, which were never good enough, regardless of what they were, and all sport Nick did was a waste of time because it wasn't the _right _sort of sport.

Nick never thought that he would understand his father completely.

* * *

He spent the rest of the day in his room, packing for his inevitable departure the next morning. His mother had informed him that he would only be allowed to take one small suitcase, since they didn't have enough room on the trains for each evacuee to take a large amount of personal belongings.

He also had to take his gas mask with him.

He hated that object with a passion, and it had been sitting in its box since the day that he'd received it; he hadn't wanted to even look at it, let alone get it out and try it on. Of course, his father had chided him on the fact that he hadn't attended any of the instruction sessions that they'd been holding in the local primary school, but he was pretty confident that if the time came that he had to use it, he could get the stupid thing over his head quite simply.

He looked around at his room, and surveyed every object that was in his eye line; what exactly to take with him? It would have to be something that he could keep with him for a few months, or however long that he was going to be away; he wasn't sure, but he didn't think that it would be _years_. Anyway, he'd be eighteen in less than a year and then he could move back to London to begin working, since he wouldn't be a child anymore.

He picked up a few pair of trousers, before folding them neatly and placing them into the bottom of the suitcase. He added a pile of shirts as well, and some socks and underwear too.

The only thing was that now there was no room for anything else; surely that was wrong? He couldn't be expected just to take clothes, could he?

"Mum!" he called from the top of the stairs, "I haven't got enough room in my suitcase for my books!"

His mother's voice drifted out of the kitchen, where she had obviously spent the majority of her afternoon calming down his father.

"Have you folded all your clothes properly?"

Nick sighed.

"Yes, Mum!" he called back, "But what about my books?"

"Oh, darling, you can't take everything with you," his mother replied, "Take one book, and your father and I will post you another one later if you need it."

"But, Mum, will my books be safe here?" Nick protested, only to have his father yell back at him.

"Of course your books will be safe! They aren't going to get up and leave, Nicholas!"

"Yes, Dad," Nick said dutifully, before retiring back into his bedroom.

His father never had approved of his love of reading, for he believed that excessive reading was bad for a person's health. Nick didn't think it had been detrimental; in fact, it was the reason that he got high marks in his English lessons.

After almost an hour of deliberation, he chose a book to take with him, and in a moment of weakness he threw in an old teddy bear as well. He wanted something to remind him of home, and his favourite bear would do perfectly; especially since he'd had him since he was born. He just had to make sure that Sebastian didn't find it; otherwise the merciless teasing would be never ending.

"Nick, darling, it's time for tea!"

Nick sat down heavily on his bed at the sound of his mother's voice. He hadn't realised that it had gotten so late in the day; it seemed as though it was barely any time at all since they'd all been crowding around the wireless downstairs.

England had been at war with Germany for over seven hours and nothing had changed or been out of the ordinary, apart from a distraught elderly neighbour who had knocked on their door and sobbed on his mother for a few minutes.

Nick knew that things couldn't stay the same forever, but how much would they change?

He didn't know, but he hoped that it wouldn't be too dramatic.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

* * *

"You scrub up smart, Duval!" Sebastian's loud voice echoed across the platform of London Bridge station, which caused everyone in the vicinity to look around themselves in surprise.

Nick groaned, and tried to remind himself why he was friends with Sebastian Smythe in the first place.

"Thanks," he muttered awkwardly, "Mum made me put on my Sunday best and wear my new winter coat."

As soon as it left his mouth he regretted it.

Sebastian chuckled.

"Did Mummy dress you then this morning, little Nicky?" he mocked.

Nick swatted at him in annoyance.

"Leave me alone," he said, "And don't call me that, just because you're taller than me, I'm still older than you."

Sebastian just smirked at him.

"Nicky, darling!" Nick's mother came rushing over to where the two boys were standing. "I have your tickets for you."

Sebastian badly stifled another chuckle, while Nick blushed in embarrassment.

"Thanks, Mum," he said, taking the piece of paper out of his mother's hand.

"Hello, Sebastian," Celia Duval continued, "Where are your parents?"

"They trusted me to make my own way down here and sort myself out," the boy replied, "I said goodbye to them at home; no need to make fools of ourselves down here in front of people."

Nick wanted nothing more than to wipe the arrogant smirk of his friend's face at that moment, but fortunately his mother was oblivious to Sebastian's remark.

"Well, I'm planning to wait around until the train leaves," Celia said. "Now, does either of you want a hot drink or something? Apparently, they're giving out cups of tea somewhere."

Both Nick and Sebastian declined, and Nick's mother hastily disappeared to find herself a hot beverage.

"Ah, here comes Thad now," Nick said, pointing in the direction of their friend, who was hurrying towards them.

"His shoelaces are undone," Sebastian observed, and Nick shot him a confused look.

"What?"

"I said, his shoelaces are undone," Sebastian repeated, "And his suitcase is coming open. If he trips on his laces, all of his belongings will go everywhere."

Nick was still frowning.

"Come on, slowpoke," Sebastian said, "We'd better go help it before he embarrasses himself. Dear me, he _needs_ his mother to dress him, I think."

Nick finally understood and he ran after Seb to reach Thad.

"Sorry I'm late," Thad said, as his two friends stopped in front of him, "I couldn't find my gas mask."

Nick rolled his eyes; this was typical of Thad.

"Sebastian, what are you doing?" Thad suddenly exclaimed as the other boy knelt down on the floor in front of him.

"He's tying your shoelaces," Nick said, looking down at Seb, who had a concentrated look on his face as he deftly fixed Thad's laces.

"Oh, thank you, I didn't even know that they'd come undone."

"Right, I think we're ready to go," Sebastian interrupted, before standing up and helping Thad to fasten his suitcase.

"I don't what I'd do without you two," Thad mused as he walked in between his two friends towards the train.

Nick laughed.

"We have no idea what you'd do either!" he said, "We've saved you from disaster too many times to count."

"There's probably so much more for me to endanger myself with in the country," Thad remarked, almost gloomily.

"Ugh, don't remind me of where we're going," Sebastian grimaced, "I'm dreading it already."

"I can't see why we can't stay here for a bit," Nick added, "There's nothing happening, is there?"

Thad opened his mouth to agree but was drowned out by the sharp whistle of the train.

"Well, we'd better get on," Sebastian said, herding the other two towards the carriages, while Nick looked around wildly for his mother; as embarrassing as she was, he was going to miss her and he didn't want to leave without saying goodbye.

"Nick!" Celia Duval's voice reached his ears just as Sebastian was about to push him into the carriage after Thad and all of their luggage.

Nick ducked under his friend's arm and ran to hug his mother tightly.

"I'm going to miss you, darling," Celia said, "But remember that you'll be safe in the country."

"Yes, Mum," Nick replied, "I love you."

"I love you too," his mother said in return.

"Oi, Duval! Hurry up, the train's about to leave!" Sebastian yelled from somewhere behind them.

"Go on, Nicky," Celia said, releasing her son and watching him as he turned and ran towards the train that was slowly beginning to pull out of the station.

As Nick reached the door, Sebastian swung it open and pulled him in by his arm.

"You always leave it the last minute, don't you, Duval?" Seb said, as he collapsed back into his seat.

Nick ignored his friend, and instead leaned out of the window to wave at his mother as she disappeared into the distance.

"Have fun in Kent!" Celia Duval called, as she waved frantically as the train rounded the corner out of the station.

"Bye, Mum!" Nick shouted back.

"Have fun in Kent, she says!" Sebastian snorted in disbelief, "What sort of fun could _anybody_ have in the _country_?"

* * *

**A/N: Okay, so if you're wondering where Jeff is, he'll be appearing next chapter (if I don't get too carried away)! I hope everyone has enjoyed this first chapter, and now for the return of those historical notes :)**

**Historical Notes:**

**1. This story is actually highly unrealistic, evacuation was only really for children aged up to 16 years old, and most of the characters in this will be 17 or older! I will also be placing all of the characters in schools, yet in the 1930s and 40s, most children left school at 14 and only few would remain in education until there were 16 or 18.**

**2. I feel like I've missed something here, but maybe not - if there's any unclear historical aspect, please ask :)**

**Thank you for reading, and please leave a review to tell me what you thought or to ask a question :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Here's Chapter 2 - and I will say that for the next few weeks, this will probably be as regular as the updates are going to get, and I am still working on those two oneshots! :)**

**Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed, favourited and followed this story - the response has been wonderful!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.**

* * *

They'd been outside of London for around ten minutes when Sebastian began talking again, breaking the calming silence within the carriage and greatly annoying Nick and Thad, who were shot unwelcome glares from the other occupants of the train when they didn't tell their friend to be quiet.

"It's just so _green_," Sebastian complained, fixing the field on the other side of the glass with narrowed eyes and trying to will it away. Unfortunately, the more they entered the countryside, the greener it became.

Nick rolled his eyes.

"It's called grass, Seb," he muttered in annoyance, "It's what grows in the fields and everywhere else on the ground. We have it in London in the parks that we go to quite often."

"Yes, but there's never this much of it," Sebastian insisted, tearing his gaze away from the window and looking at Nick instead, "Here, it just goes on and on."

"It's quite nice and calming, I suppose," Thad added to the conversation, in an attempt to pacify his friends so that Sebastian wouldn't irritate Nick so much that they'd have an argument.

"Calming?" Sebastian scoffed, "Give me grey pavements and brick buildings, then I'll be happy!"

"Don't you ever get tired of London being monotonous?" Thad inquired.

"Monotonous?" Sebastian looked horrified, "London's not monotonous; there's so much to do, and people to see. In the country, it'll just be the same old mud and grass everyday. I shouldn't doubt that they're just shipping us off to a farm to work there like cheap labour until they find something else for us to do."

"Seb!" Nick exclaimed, just as a woman in the seats next to them gave them an angry look as a child nearby began crying for home.

"Maybe you'll keep it in mind to keep your opinions to yourself," the woman snapped, "I've got forty children under the age of ten to look after here, and they don't need you scaring them with ridiculous ideas!"

Sebastian looked only mildly abashed as he muttered a small apology, before defiantly turning to look out of the window again.

They continued in silence until they pulled into a station that they'd never heard of before, and the woman and her charges got off the train together. Once she was gone, it left only Nick, Sebastian and Thad in the carriage; the rest of the occupants having got off at various other stations.

"Well, what a stupid…!"

"Seb!" Thad squeaked, preventing his friend from saying something very derogatory of the woman.

"What?" Sebastian demanded, "She wasn't being half rude, was she?"

Nick sighed.

"Let it go, Seb," he said, "Maybe you should keep your opinions to yourself sometimes, instead of broadcasting them publicly; there is a war on, you know."

Sebastian scoffed.

"A war on, he says!" he laughed, "Have you even seen anything of this war, Nicky? No, you haven't; no one has, and they're still making us leave our homes to go somewhere completely insignificant where we'll be unhappy."

"You never know," Thad said, "You might not be unhappy."

Sebastian gave him a withering look.

"You make it sound as though everything is going to be wonderful, and we're all going to meet the loves of our lives and skip off happily into the sunset," he said, "And we all know that only happens in one of Nick's books."

Nick opened his mouth to defend his favourite possessions, but he quickly closed it again when he remembered the amount of times he'd argued with Sebastian about them; it wasn't worth the effort.

"What if you do fall in love in the country?" Thad persisted, becoming so bored with the train journey that he'd actually taken to provoking Sebastian into challenging his own statements.

"Don't be stupid," Seb said, "If I fall in love, I'll…well, I'll eat my hat!"

Nick laughed.

"You don't have a hat," he pointed out, "And no one could love you anyway."

Sebastian looked hurt.

"That was cold, Nicky-boy," he said, "I will have you know that I'm a very lovable person."

Now it was Nick's turn to scoff.

"No one but Thad and I can stand being in a room with you for longer than ten minutes," he said, "And neither of us loves you in that way."

"There's always Tilly from the pictures that time," Thad grinned mischievously, as he recalled the girl in question; she'd been rather infatuated with Sebastian for a while, and had deliberately hung around the cinema every Thursday afternoon at the time that Nick, Thad and Seb always arrived. She'd become so annoying that they'd had to change their regular day to a Tuesday instead to avoid her, and that was frustrating because the tickets were a halfpenny more expensive on a Tuesday.

"Don't remind me," Sebastian grimaced, "I had to hide in Covent Garden the other day in an attempt to avoid her; she terrifies me that much!"

Nick and Thad laughed.

"She terrifies you?" Nick asked, in between laughter, "That's hilarious!"

Sebastian shot the boy opposite him a glare.

"You know what I mean," he snapped, "Don't you remember Molly three years ago?"

Nick paled.

"She turned up at my house, Seb," he said, "And my mother invited her in for tea; that's terrifying! I'm so glad that she moved away to Norfolk."

"At least you two had admirers," Thad mused, "Even if you don't even like girls all that much."

"All that much?" Sebastian repeated, "Try, 'not at all'!"

Thad sighed as both of his friends completely missed the point in his sentence; he knew that they hadn't done it purposely, for Sebastian never noticed anything past his own predicaments, and Nick was just seemed to be preoccupied by something all the time.

There was a sharp whistle from the train conductor somewhere further up the train, and the three boys finally noticed that they'd pulled into the station that they wanted. They got up in a hurry and managed to jump off the train, just as it began moving again.

"We almost missed the stop," Nick grumbled to no one in particular, "Then where would we have gone?"

"Probably somewhere more interesting than here," Sebastian muttered, looking at the station sign, proclaiming that they'd arrived in a place that didn't look particularly significant in his eyes.

Picking up their cases, they followed the line of other evacuees through the station and out into the high street on the other side. They then proceeded further into the village and into the local Women's Institute hall, which was between the butchers and a terrace of houses.

Inside they'd organised drinks for them and also a selection of biscuits. The younger children surged forwards happily at the sight of the refreshments, while Thad, Nick and Sebastian hung back by themselves.

"I've got some liquorice," Sebastian announced loudly, "We can share it, since it's probably better than whatever cheap rubbish they're handing out over there."

Both Nick and Thad flushed in embarrassment and dragged the taller boy over to sit on some chairs that had been set out.

"Right, children," the school mistress who had travelled down with the other evacuees was saying, "I want you all to look you best, because the host families will be here soon to pick you up, and I want them to have a good first impression of you."

All of the children nodded dutifully, and even the three older boys straightened their clothes and fixed their hair in an attempt to look less travel-worn.

* * *

At exactly one in the afternoon, the door to the hall was opened, and the first few people began to enter; the majority were elderly women, who took some of the younger children home with them.

"So this is what happens," Sebastian whispered, "They just choose the child they like the look of; I thought they'd have already assigned us families to go to."

"What if there are not enough foster families to go around?" Thad whispered, "Do they just send us back to London?"

Sebastian's eyes lit up at the thought.

"Maybe," he said, "We could always try."

"You know that as soon as we get back to London, they'll ship us off to another place," Nick pointed out, "We might as well stick it out here; I mean, how bad can it get?"

Sebastian narrowed his eyes.

"I trod in mud almost as soon as we stepped off the train," he said, "I could have ruined my shoes, and then my mother would have been very angry because you can't even count as high as the price of them."

Nick glared at the taller boy.

"I'm better at you at arithmetic," he said crossly, "Actually, I'm better than you at everything, Seb."

"You're not!" Sebastian cried petulantly. He opened his mouth to continue with a comeback, when Thad patted his arm urgently.

"Seb, Nick," he said, "All of the other children are gone."

"What?" Nick asked, both him and Sebastian turning at the same time to find that Thad was right: all of the other evacuees, and even the schoolmistress had left the hall, and it was just them and some of the women from the village left.

"It's alright, dears," a woman approached them, holding a tray with some steaming cups on them, "I made you some tea while you wait."

The three boys thanked the woman politely, and Thad asked what was going to happen to them, since no one had come to claim them.

"Don't fret, dears," the woman said, "We're still waiting on two more people to come down and take evacuees; you'll be going soon enough."

She gave them a reassuring smile, and disappeared back into the kitchen.

"Does this mean that we'll be split up?" Thad asked in a small voice, "Since they've got two more people on their way."

"I guess so," Sebastian said gloomily, as Nick said nothing. He was too busy staring off into the distance as he wondered what his parents were doing in London at that moment.

Just as they were finishing their tea, the door to the hall opened, and a middle-aged woman entered. She wore a printed dress underneath a thin coat and a pair of neatly polished shoes; her greying hair was tightly pulled back from her face in a bun, and her mouth was set into a firm line.

"So, Mary, what have you got for me?" she asked, addressing the woman at the front of the hall.

"There are three boys over here, Sally," Mary said, leading the new lady towards Thad, Sebastian and Nick.

Sally gave all of them a look up and down, taking in their appearance quickly.

"Well," she said eventually, "I did want two younger children, preferably girls, but I see now that's not possible."

"You have to take some of them," Mary insisted, "There's nowhere else."

Sally sniffed a little in annoyance, before making her choice.

"Alright," she said, "These two will have to do, I suppose." She motioned to Thad and Sebastian, who both tried their best not to show their disappointment at having to go with the unpleasant women.

"Very good," Mary said, giving the boys a sympathetic look. "Boys, this is Mrs Clarington, she'll be looking after you. Do have a safe journey home."

She gave Thad and Sebastian a small wave, as they shot Nick a pleading look on their way out the door.

"What about me?" Nick asked, as his friends disappeared from sight.

"There should be someone along soon," Mary said, "Now, would you like another cup of tea or something else to eat?"

Nick shook his head and politely declined the offer; he felt mildly ill after meeting Mrs Clarington, and he was dreading who he'd be forced to stay with. What if they hated him? What if everything was going to be as bad as Sebastian had said that it would be?

* * *

Half an hour later, Nick was still sitting by himself in the hall. He'd begun to wonder what would happen if no one turned up for him. They could send him back to London, like he'd wanted, but he was reluctant to go back without his friends.

He was still pondering this idea, when the hall door was flung open and a woman in her late thirties came bowling through the entrance; her hat was askew, and she was still wearing an apron over her dress.

"Mrs Sterling, there you are!" Mary said, "I was starting to think that you weren't coming."

"I am so sorry," Mrs Sterling apologised, "I was baking and Harry reminded me that I was supposed to be picking up our evacuee from the hall. I left immediately, but you know how long it takes in the cart, and I even forgot to take my apron off before leaving."

"I can see, Josie," Mary smiled, "Well, we've only one boy left, so I hope that he'll be alright for you."

She led Josie Sterling over to Nick, and introduced the two of them to each other.

"I'm sure you'll be splendid," Mrs Sterling announced, and she thanked Mary for her help, before leading Nick out to the horse and cart that was standing in the middle of the high street.

Nick couldn't help but feel apprehensive as they left the hall, but he was also immensely grateful that this woman appeared friendly, if not a little forgetful.

* * *

"I've got a son who is your age," Mrs Sterling said, as she led the horse down a small dusty lane, "His name is Jeffrey, and I'm sure that the two of you will get on wonderfully."

Nick nodded, as he took in this new piece of information; one part of an entire spiel that Mrs Sterling had been giving him on their journey. He'd also learnt that they lived on a farm, owned by her husband, Harry Sterling; that the horse's name was Doris, and they used the cart because petrol was too expensive; and that Mrs Sterling's mother was allergic to cats.

"Have you come down with any friends?"

"Two," Nick replied, "Sebastian and Thad, they've gone to a Mrs Clarington's."

Mrs Sterling nodded.

"I see," she said, and the tone of her voice gave away her views on the other woman, "She's got an older son, very polite and lovely boy, but he's away with the air force, and it's just her and her husband there now. They don't live too far from us, just a short walk away, so you can visit them when you want to."

Nick smiled gratefully, and there was a lull in the conversation.

"Oh, look now, you can see the farm from here," Josie Sterling cried suddenly, pointing to a small cottage that could be seen between the trees.

It looked like the postcards that Nick had once received in a special edition of his favourite magazine.

And before long, they were pulling up in front of it. Mrs Sterling helped Nick down from the cart, and then she passed his suitcase down to him as well.

"I'd better introduce you to Jeffrey," she said, "But I told him to meet us here, and there's no sign of him."

Nick glanced around himself at the farm, but there didn't appear to be anyone nearby.

"Jeffrey!" Mrs Sterling called, "Where are you?"

There was no answer.

"Oh dear, what's that boy gone and done now?" Josie Sterling wondered.

Just then, there was a loud crack from somewhere overhead and an annoyed shout.

Both Nick and Mrs Sterling looked up just in time to see a blonde boy fall out of the tree in front of them.

* * *

**A/N: So, Jeff has arrived...sort of... :) And guess whose house Sebastian and Thad are staying at - it's really obvious :)**

**Historical Points:**

**1. A halfpenny is what it says, half of an old penny in old British currency - the equivalent of maybe 20p now (I'm not sure about this).**

**2. And yes, there is a horse and cart in this, because they were still used in the British countryside in 1939 - think of the beginning of ****_The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe_**** :)**

**Thank you for reading, and please leave a review to tell me what you thought or to ask me a question about the history behind it :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: So, I have managed to get Chapter 3 out in good time, however, the rest of the updates are liable to be more irregular - if they are, I'm very sorry :) Also, thank you very much for the awesome response to this story! And, I forgot to say this last time, but thank you also for the response I got from the end of ****_Second Star to the Right_**** - I'm glad you all enjoyed the epilogue :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.**

* * *

"Jeffrey!" Josie Sterling cried, as the boy, who was clearly her son, landed in a crumpled heap on the ground in front of them. "Are you okay?"

"Of course, Mum," the boy said, standing up and dusting himself off, "I've never hurt myself before."

Josie Sterling didn't look convinced, but she didn't continue with subject.

The boy suddenly turned to Nick and held out his hand for him to shake. It was such an unnatural thing for someone who had just fallen out of a tree to do that Nick stared at the boy with his mouth open for a few moments.

"Jeffrey Sterling," the blonde boy introduced himself, "You must be the townie who is coming to stay with us."

Quickly, Nick recovered himself; his mother would have been highly disappointed in his sudden lack of manners.

"Nicholas Duval," he said, shaking Jeffrey's outstretched hand firmly. "Well, it's Nick actually."

The blonde boy smiled widely.

"I guess that you'd better call me Jeff then," he said, "Since we're going to be friends and all that."

Nick was a little surprised by the other boy's definite statement that they were going to be friends, but he seemed nice and so Nick wasn't going to ruin his chances of enjoying his time in the countryside just a little bit.

"Well, Jeffrey, why don't you show Nick around the farm a little before dinner?" Mrs Sterling suggested, "Get him acquainted with the surroundings."

Nick paled; he'd never been to a farm before, and he was rather unsure about animals generally, let alone farm ones. But Jeff wouldn't just abandon him in the middle of some horses, would he? No, of course not.

Still, Nick wasn't entirely sure about the country; maybe that would just be normal?

"Come on," Jeff's excited voice interrupted his thoughts, "We've got lots to see before dinner, and Mum's making the best roast dinner you'll have ever tasted tonight."

The blonde boy grabbed Nick's hand impulsively, and dragged him out of the front yard towards the small hill to one side of the cottage. Nick followed as best he could without falling on the stones that littered the Sterlings' yard, and without thinking too much about the warm feeling of Jeff's hand in his; his fingers were rough from constant farm work, Nick assumed, but they still felt nice wrapped snugly around his own.

When they reached the top of the hill, Jeff dropped Nick's hand as though holding it had been the most natural occurrence in the world, and he held out his arms dramatically as he gestured to the surrounding area; encompassing rising and falling hills and valleys of endless fields.

"Welcome to the Sterlings' farm," the blonde cried, "The best farm in all of Kent, and maybe even the whole of England; and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise!"

Nick smiled at Jeff's enthusiasm, and took the time he spent just standing there to look at the other boy properly.

Jeff was tall, taller than Nick anyway, but probably shorter than Sebastian. He was slim but also muscular from the farm work, and despite clearly spending a lot of time outside, his skin maintained an even pale tone.

"Over here is the main barn," Jeff said, leading Nick over to a large corrugated iron building, "And further up that hill over there, there's a smaller one, which we use to keep the feed for the sheep when they're in the higher fields in the summer."

He continued to talk about sheep and hay for another five minutes, but the words meant nothing to Nick, and he accidentally zoned out on what Jeff was saying.

"Nick," Jeff whined, "You're not listening to me."

The blonde boy actually pouted at that point, which took Nick aback for a second and he had to resist the urge to ask Jeff just how old he was, since he was acting like a five year old.

"I'm seventeen," Jeff replied, looking at Nick in confusion.

Nick looked back at the blonde with a similar expression, until it occurred to him that he'd actually spoken his question aloud.

"Right," he recovered himself, "I'm seventeen as well."

Jeff grinned, and motioned for Nick to follow him inside the barn itself.

"Jeff, can I ask what you were doing up that tree earlier?" Nick asked, once they were standing in front of a selection of tools and other farming implements, which were hanging on the walls of the barn.

The blonde gave him a strange look.

"Well, I was climbing it, of course," he said, "What else would I be doing?"

"Climbing it?" Nick narrowed his eyes, "Why were you climbing a tree?"

Jeff frowned.

"It was for fun," he said, sounding mildly defensive of himself, "I always climb trees, and I always seem to fall out of them as well."

Nick was still regarding him curiously, when Jeff finally understood.

"Wait, have you never climbed a tree before?"

"No, of course not," Nick replied.

Jeff's eyes went wide, and Nick actually thought he was going to pass out as he began almost jumping up and down madly.

"How can you have never climbed a tree before?" the blonde boy cried, "Everyone has to climb at least one tree, it's like a rite of passage in childhood, and you have to fall out at least once, otherwise it doesn't count!"

"Sorry?" Nick tried, feeling utterly bemused by the outburst from the other boy.

"You don't have to apologise," Jeff said, "Because I'm going to get you to climb a tree, whether you like it or not."

Nick laughed.

"I'd like to see you try," he retorted, as casually and familiarly as he would have done with any of his friends, who he'd known for years. It was so natural to be so comfortable with Jeff after knowing him for barely half an hour; the blonde was completely unknown to Nick, but there was something in the back of his mind that made him feel as though they'd been friends for years.

It was a strange but welcome feeling.

* * *

Jeff looked across at Nick as he led he two of them further up the hill towards the outer fields. He'd heard some stories about townies before they'd all arrived, and not all of them had been good: according to Arthur Brown's cousin, all townies were troublemakers, and they were all to steer well clear of them. Jeff realised that wasn't exactly going to be possible for him.

But Nick seemed nice enough, he didn't appear quite as energetic as Jeff himself, but then again, when had anyone?

"So, have you come down with any friends?" Jeff asked, startling the brunette out of his thoughts.

"Yes," Nick replied, "Two, actually; Thad and Sebastian, they're staying with Mrs Clarington."

Jeff made a face, which instantly reminded Nick of the way in which the blonde's mother had also reacted; clearly Mrs Clarington wasn't particularly popular in the village.

"I pity your friends," Jeff said, "She's a horrible woman, always going on about how wonderful her life is, and how awful ours must be because we're not her. And then there's her husband, calls himself 'Colonel' when I doubt he's ever seen active service, not even during the last war; he probably made up an excuse as to why conscription didn't apply to him."

Nick was a little stunned at the other boy's outburst, for he'd been convinced that Jeff was the sort of person to see the good in everyone, but clearly he could find nothing to be pleased about when it came to the Claringtons.

"But what about their son?" Nick asked, "Your mother said that he was alright."

"Hunter?" Jeff smiled, "Yes, he's alright, more than alright actually, and I have no idea how he ever managed to get born into a family such as theirs. He's one of my closest friends; he's managed to get me out of a fair few scrapes over the years. He's away in the air force now."

And then it was back, Jeff's happy outlook on life, and he practically skipped over to the gate of the next field to unlock it and lead Nick through.

"This is our paddock," the blonde announced, "We've got three horses, Bella, Elizabeth and Frank. Bella and Elizabeth are in this field, and Frank is in the next one over."

Nick's eyes widened.

"Is it safe to stand in the field with the horses?" he asked.

Jeff laughed.

"Of course it's safe, silly!" he cried, "Look, here comes Elizabeth now."

Nick followed Jeff's gaze towards a dapple grey mare, which was trotting over to meet them. The brunette shrunk back behind the blonde boy a little in an attempt not to draw attention to himself; there were very rarely any horses in London, and when there were, he'd always been told not to get too close to them.

"Hey there, girl," Jeff cooed, reaching out a hand to stroke the horse's nose as she came to a stop next to them. "Here, I've got some carrot for you." He produced a slice of carrot from his trouser pocket, and fed it to the mare.

It was only when Nick shifted over slightly that Jeff realised that the brunette was still beside him.

"Here," he said, handing Nick a piece of carrot before he had a chance to refuse it, "You try now."

"No, I'm…"

"Go on, just hold your hand flat, and she'll eat it."

Gingerly, Nick held out his hand, trying to keep it as flat as possible, as the horse snorted eagerly, and stepped forward to take the food.

"That's it, well done," Jeff said encouragingly, and Nick wasn't sure whether the blonde boy was talking to him or to the horse.

As the mare got closer, Nick instinctively closed his eyes, and when he opened them again a few moments later, he found that the carrot was gone.

"See? That wasn't hard, was it?" Jeff said, grinning widely. "Maybe next time I can get you to ride her!"

Nick almost choked on thin air in surprise.

"I've never even been this close to a horse," he said, "Let alone ridden one."

"It's easy," Jeff said, as though horse riding was as simple and natural as just walking, "I'll show you; once I've made you climb a tree, of course."

He winked mischievously, and Nick immediately felt his face heat up. He kicked himself mentally; there was no need for him to blush, just because a boy had winked at him.

Jeff, meanwhile, was entirely oblivious, and instead he was already leading Nick out of the field, and down the lane towards the westerly side of the farm. Elizabeth followed them to the hedge, and then watched sadly as they left her.

"I think she likes you," Jeff remarked.

* * *

"Wait a second," Jeff halted suddenly, "I've just got to do my shoelaces up." He bent down to retie the laces, while Nick stood by the hedge and watched him.

Suddenly, Nick felt something nudge his shoulder from behind. He jumped in surprise, and let out an embarrassingly high pitched squeal as he caught sight of something rather large moving on the other side of the fence.

Jeff shot up from where he was crouched on the ground, thinking that something was happening to the brunette. He looked around a few times before beginning to laugh.

"Don't laugh!" Nick cried, frowning, "What is it?"

"What do you mean what is it?" Jeff asked, catching his breath, and then bursting into laughter again as Nick narrowly missed being licked by a rather large tongue.

"I mean, what is it that is attacking me?" Nick clarified, letting out another undignified squeal.

Jeff stopped laughing and instead stared at Nick as though he'd grown another head.

"Nick, it's a cow," he said slowly, "It's not exactly a weird and exotic creature."

Nick turned around and inspected the cow that was mooing rather happily at him; it looked quite pleased with itself, in fact.

"That's a cow?" he said.

Jeff nodded.

"How can you not know what a cow is?" he asked.

"I've never been out of London," Nick said simply, "I've never seen a cow before. The only cows in London are the ones that end up in the butchers as…"

He was interrupted by Jeff yelling loudly and hurriedly trying to place his hand over the cow's ears.

"Don't say it!" he cried urgently, "You'll offend Daisy."

"Daisy?"

"The cow."

"Oh."

Nick nodded slowly; the country really was quite weird, wasn't it?

* * *

An hour later, Nick found himself sitting down for tea in the Sterlings' dining room. It was typical of a small English country farmhouse, with old wooden chairs that an ancestor had probably made, along with patched checked curtains which failed to keep out any of the bright sunlight.

Just as Jeff had said, Josie Sterling had made a roast dinner, and Nick had to admit that it was one of the nicest that he'd ever had.

"All of that came from our garden," Jeff said proudly, "All of it."

Nick was impressed; the only chicken to be found at home was from the butchers, and the vegetables came in tins from the grocers. He'd never had fresh vegetables before.

"I fell out of the oak tree in the front yard today," Jeff remarked absentmindedly to no one in particular, though Nick supposed that it was really to his father, since everyone else had been there.

"You and your trees," Harry Sterling shook his head, "One day you're going to really hurt yourself, Jeffrey."

"No, I'm not," Jeff said insistently, "You know that I don't ever hurt myself."

"Well, you must at least be careful," Mrs Sterling said, "You never know what might happen one day."

Jeff scoffed at the suggestion and waved it away; he knew that he'd be fine, he always was, and he'd had worse falls than the one earlier that day.

"So, Jeffrey, have you shown Nick around yet?" Mr Sterling asked, looking at his son over the rather large pile of potatoes that his wife had placed on his plate.

Jeff nodded eagerly.

"I took him up to the barn, and then we saw the horses, and," Jeff paused to giggle, "Daisy tried to lick him."

Josie Sterling laughed with her son, while Mr Sterling looked at Nick sympathetically.

"I take it they don't have many cows in London, eh?"

Nick smiled gratefully; Jeff's father had understood his predicament in one simple sentence.

"No, sir," the brunette replied.

Harry Sterling laughed, and Nick noticed how similar his laugh was to Jeff's own.

"Now, now," he said, "None of that 'sir' stuff, call me Harry."

"And call me Josie," Mrs Sterling piped up.

"If you insist," Nick agreed hesitantly, he had never addressed any adult, apart from his parents, so informally; even Sebastian's parents were Mr and Mrs Smythe, and he didn't want to imagine their reactions if he used their first names.

"It's getting dark," Mr Sterling remarked suddenly, "I'd better be going up to get the sheep in. Jeffrey, you stay here tonight, and tomorrow morning, you and Nick can get them out before you go to school."

Jeff agreed happily, while Nick just looked utterly surprised.

"Are you alright?" the blonde boy leant over to whisper to the brunette.

"I have to help out on the farm?" Nick asked, with wide-eyed.

Jeff looked at him as though he was mad; it was almost the same look he'd given him when he'd asked about the cow before.

"Of course," he replied, "This is a farm, there's a war on and we're taking you in free of charge; we need all of the hands we've got. Anyway, it'll be fun, you know, you and me out on the farm in the morning."

Nick nodded, feeling rather guilty that he'd seemed so ungrateful in the first place; the Sterlings weren't being paid for his keep, and he should put in some effort to help them out.

"And then you have school tomorrow," Josie Sterling said cheerfully as she cleared their plates away and replaced them with bowls of steaming custard.

"Thank you," Nick said politely, as he began tucking into the warm liquid, but across the table from him, Jeff had gone even paler than usual.

"I'm not hungry," he announced, and without warning, he got up and walked out of the room.

Both Mrs Sterling and Nick watched him disappear, and then heard his footsteps echoing up the wooden stairs. Nick gave Jeff's mother a questioning look.

"I'm not sure, dear," she said, "It must have been the mention of taking you to school tomorrow that made him act like that, which is odd, because I wouldn't have thought that would upset him."

Nick frowned; what was wrong with taking him to school the next day? Did Jeff not want to have to be burdened with looking after him?

He thanked Mrs Sterling for the custard again, and then announced he was full, before getting down from the table. He headed immediately for the stairs, but upon remembering that he actually didn't know where he was going, or where his case was, he paused and turned back towards the dining room.

Mrs Sterling looked up as she saw him hesitate.

"Straight up the stairs, dear," she said, "Jeff's bedroom is the first on the left; your case is already up there."

Nick thanked her and headed up to Jeff's room.

Gently, he knocked on the door and waited for a response from the boy inside; even though he was staying there, he couldn't just walk in whenever he wanted.

"Come in," Jeff said quietly from the other side.

Nick opened the door carefully, and stepped inside. Jeff was sitting on a bed on the left side of the room, which Nick assumed was his, for there was another that sat against the opposite wall.

"Sorry about rushing off like that," Jeff said softly, looking down at his bed and not making eye contact with Nick.

"It's fine," Nick replied, "I came to make sure that you were alright." He paused. "And…"

"And what?" Jeff asked, looking up when Nick's sentence trailed away unfinished.

"Well," Nick bit his lip as he spoke; he didn't want to offend Jeff, he just wanted to know, "I was wondering why you didn't like the idea of taking me to school with you tomorrow?"

* * *

**A/N: Okay, next chapter, the real story starts, this was just sort of Nick and Jeff getting to know each other a bit more :) **

**Historical Points:**

**1. Nick was not just being extraordinarily clueless when he didn't recognise a cow, many evacuees had never seen a cow before nor had they ever seen any other farm animals. Nick's comment about never having had fresh vegetables is also something that was new to many evacuees - one real evacuee, when told that their host family's carrots 'came from the garden', the child replied with 'ours come from tins' :)**

**Thank you for reading, and please leave a review to tell me what you thought, or to ask a question about the history behind this story :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: So, Chapter 4 is quite short because I wanted to post something for you guys, and my next oneshot should up soon to make it up to you - except it's turning into more of a threeshot instead of just one :) Thank you for the lovely response to this story :)**

**Warning: Mentions of bullying at the end.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.**

* * *

"I was wondering why you didn't like the idea of taking me to school with you tomorrow?"

Jeff shook his head.

"My reaction had nothing to do with taking you to school tomorrow," he said, "I just…"

"Just what, Jeff?" Nick asked, closing the door behind him and coming to sit on the opposite bed. "What's wrong?"

Jeff looked away again and began picking at a loose thread on his quilt.

"It's nothing," he said, "It's stupid anyway."

"I'm sure it's not," Nick persisted encouragingly, "Is it something to do with school?"

Slowly, Jeff nodded; he couldn't tell Nick the truth, he just couldn't. And so he said the first thought that came into his head.

"I just don't understand it," he said, "I don't like school because I can't understand my lessons."

Across the room, Nick regarded him both sympathetically and slightly suspiciously. The brunette felt sorry for the blonde boy if he truly did struggle with academic work, but Nick wasn't entirely convinced that was the complete truth; for would the mention of work cause Jeff to go as pale and look as terrified as he had done? Nick doubted it; yet, it wasn't his place to challenge Jeff's explanation.

The two boys sat in silence for a while, until Jeff finally spoke.

"That's your bed," he said, motioning to the piece of furniture that Nick was sitting on, "Mum put your case at the end of it."

Nick nodded as he caught sight of his belongings on the floor.

"And where's the bathroom?" he asked, not recalling seeing one on the way up the stairs.

Jeff looked a little sheepish.

"It may sound primitive to you, and it almost definitely won't be what you're used to," he said, "But the toilet is outside."

"Outside?" Nick said, his mouth dropping open, "What's it doing outside?"

"Nearly all the toilets down here are outside," Jeff explained, "Or at least, the farm ones are."

"Is that not unhygienic?" Nick asked, his voice had dropped to an almost disgusted whisper.

Jeff laughed.

"Probably," he said, once he'd considered it, "But it's alright, as long as you avoid the spiders and don't trip in the dark." He grinned. "Think of it as an adventure, Nicky."

Nick made a face, but he couldn't help the blush that crept up his cheeks at the nickname; he really had to stop being so obvious with his emotions.

"I'd rather not have an adventure on the way to the bathroom," he said, which somehow managed to send the other boy into fits of laughter.

He didn't join in, he was too busy wondering how many adventures he would be having in the country; many, was a likely answer.

* * *

The next morning, Josie Sterling woke the two boys up at dawn so that they could get the cows out of the shed and into their field for the day.

Quite the opposite to his mood last night, Jeff practically skipped next to Nick as they made their way up the lane, and chattered excitedly about how Nick was going to meet his friends, Trent and David, later. Nick had barely been able to keep up with the conversation as the blonde seemed to talk constantly without taking a single breath in between any of his words.

"We're all going to be such good friends," Jeff was almost gushing, "And we'll all go on adventures together; they usually don't want to go on adventures with me, but you will, won't you, Nicky?"

Nick agreed readily, mostly because he was too busy trying to hide that fact that he was blushing yet again to formulate a comprehensive answer other than eagerly nodding.

"Oh good," Jeff was still talking, "There's so much I still want to do, but it's always more fun to have someone to have an adventure with, don't you think so?"

Again, Nick nodded in assent, since he'd never really thought about having very many adventures, if he was truly honest with himself, but replying in the affirmative appeared to be the best option.

Jeff's attention was then taken by the opening of the shed and his sudden decision to start talking rather animatedly to the cows inside, who just looked highly bemused by his incessant rambling.

"Nick, would you hold the gate while I let them out?" Jeff asked, ceasing his conversation with Daisy to address the brunette, who was trying his hardest to be as far from the animals as was possible, without actually leaving the shed or running back to the farmhouse.

"Sure," Nick said, trying to sound as nonchalant as he could, but doubt must have crept into his voice because Jeff quickly amended his statement.

"Of course, you don't have to," he said, "I just thought…but, no, after yesterday, you don't have to at all."

"It's fine," Nick stopped his apologies, "It's just a gate, I can hold it open."

He didn't want to seem completely terrified by the previous experience that he had had with the cows; since he wasn't really a child anymore, and anyway, Jeff clearly loved the farm, and he didn't want to disappoint the blonde boy by not being so enamoured by it as he was.

And so he held the gate, while Jeff drove the cows out of the shed and into the field; the blonde gave him a grateful smile as he past, and Nick was convinced that the gesture made his heart speed up.

He wasn't entirely sure why, though.

* * *

Once the cows were safely into the field, the two boys were given their lunch by Mrs Sterling, who sounded rather proud of her work when she announced that they both had boiled ham sandwiches and a bottle of ginger beer between the two of them, which they could share with anyone that they wanted.

They headed off to school with the sandwiches and the bottle stowed in Jeff's satchel. It was a two mile walk over the fields to the village, but Jeff insisted on making it as fun as possible, including challenging Nick to various races up some of the steepest hills Nick had ever come across, or seeing who could jump the widest parts of the brook that ran around the back of the farm. That had ended in Jeff tripping and stepping into the water so that his trousers and shoes became soaked.

At long last, they arrived in the schoolyard, with barely a few minutes until the bell was rung.

"Where have you been?" a boy that Nick had never seen before asked.

"We were on our way," Jeff said, "We just took our time, alright?"

The other boy nodded, before looking over at Nick.

"Hey, Jeff, this your townie?" he said.

Jeff nodded.

"This is Nick," he said, "Nick, this is David."

The other boy, clearly the David that he had heard so much about, smiled politely at him, and offered him a hand for him to shake, which he did, obligingly.

"And this is Trent," Jeff announced, indicating another boy who had now joined them.

"Nick," Nick introduced himself, and Trent gave him a friendly wave.

"Jeff was very excited to have someone staying with him," Trent said, "He must be so glad that it's you."

Nick was mildly puzzled by Trent's statement, but he grinned nonetheless.

While Jeff talked with his friends, Nick cast a glance around the yard to try to catch sight of Thad and Sebastian, but he couldn't see them among the other children who were milling around.

The school was only a village one, but it still catered for all children from around the age of four until eighteen. There was a teacher for each class, and in each class there was two years of pupils, as well as a headmistress, who also seemed to take the role of the school secretary.

"Line up, please!" a loud voice called from the door of the school, accompanied by the tolling of a small handheld bell.

The noise of the yard dissipated and left only a quiet murmur as everyone found the line for their class.

"Come with me," Jeff said, taking Nick's hand and dragging him over to the furthest line.

The blonde boy stood in front of Nick, while Trent and David filed in behind him, and behind them stood Thad and Sebastian, who had both made it through the school gate just in time for the bell.

A tall woman, clearly their teacher, came out of the school and down the steps to count how many students were present, and also to meet the new evacuees, who were to become pupils.

"My name is Miss Bailey," the woman introduced herself to Nick, Thad and Sebastian, "And I will be your teacher until you leave here, I should assume. Now, I'll be assessing what level you are at in class later, is that understood?"

"Yes, miss," the three boys chorused, and their teacher smiled.

"Good," she said, before addressing the girl at the head of the line, "Lead in, Mary, please."

They filed inside in silence, and Jeff hung his satchel on a peg in the corridor, as did all of the other children with bags. In the classroom itself, the desks were arranged in rows, and Nick was reminded of all of his history books that he'd read; this school was very much in the fashion of the previous century, having been updated only very minimally.

Miss Bailey made Nick, Thad and Sebastian stand up at the front while she introduced them to the class and found them a place to sit.

Looking at his now fellow classmates, Nick felt his stomach turn in anticipation; some of them were almost glaring at him and his friends, while others just looked highly uninterested. Jeff, David and Trent were the only ones who were smiling at them.

"So, class, any volunteers to get our new pupils settled in?" Miss Bailey asked, surveying the boys and girls in front of her.

Jeff's hand shot in the air.

"Jeffrey," the teacher smiled, clearly used to such an enthusiastic response, "That would be wonderful, thank you. Nick, why don't you go and sit with Jeff?"

Nick grinned at the blonde boy who was practically bouncing up and down excitedly in his seat; he was pretty sure that Jeff had forgotten the fact that he'd told him that he didn't like school the night before.

"And Trent and David?" Miss Bailey turned to her other reliable class members. "Would you sit with Sebastian and Thad, please?"

The two boys nodded, and gestured for the evacuees to fill the empty seats beside them.

When everyone was sorted, Miss Bailey clapped her hands together and the lesson began.

The first thing that Nick learnt was that Jeff had most definitely lied to him about disliking academic work; the blonde boy was the top of the class in all of his subjects, and in arithmetic, he had almost finished the questions before some pupils had even looked up at the blackboard.

Jeff caught Nick looking over at him curiously, and he ducked his head, clearly aware of the fact that the brunette knew that he hadn't been truthful.

Still, he didn't offer the other boy an explanation.

* * *

At noon, they were all released from the classroom and given an hour for lunch. Nick followed Jeff from the room so that they could collect their food from Jeff's satchel, while everyone else headed straight outside.

In the yard, Jeff took Nick around to the back of the building where there was some shaded patches of grass for them to sit on. The blonde boy split the sandwiches in two, and then offered Nick some of the ginger beer. Nick thanked him politely and sipped at his drink, trying to remember the last time that he'd tasted good ginger beer; his mother always bought cheap horrid stuff, and Sebastian's father had once encouraged both him and Sebastian to try some that Mrs Smythe had made, except it didn't taste even remotely like it should have done.

"Only another hour of lessons," Jeff said, as he bit into his sandwich, "And then we can go home at two, but Mum gave me a penny to go to the village shop and get us some sweets to share; how does that sound?"

Nick said that it sounded lovely, and Jeff smiled at him, before turning his attention back to his food.

Once they'd both finished, they headed back around to the front of the school building, and met one of the teachers for the younger classes as she was leaving her classroom.

"Ah, Jeffrey, just the person I wanted to see," she said, halting them. "Do you think that you could take these books down to the second class for me?"

"Of course, miss," Jeff said, taking the proffered exercise books.

"Thank you," the teacher said gratefully, before she disappeared back inside.

"I'll come and find you once I've delivered these," Jeff said to Nick, "Thad and Sebastian are just over there, and I know that you haven't had a chance to talk to them yet."

Nick turned around as Jeff hurried away to see his two friends just entering the school yard again, and so he went over to meet them.

"Where've you been?" he asked, which was met with a mocked hurt gasp from Sebastian.

"We haven't spoken to you in over a day, and we don't even get a greeting?" he asked, "Nicky, I'm hurt, does our friendship mean nothing?"

Nick rolled his eyes.

"We went back to the Claringtons' for lunch," Thad explained, as both of them ignoring Sebastian completely. "Mrs Clarington refused to pack us anything in case we wasted it."

"What's she like then?" Nick asked, eager to hear the news about his friends' host family. "I've heard a fair few tales about her."

"She's awful!" Sebastian cried, "She clearly doesn't like us at all, she makes that obvious by the amount of times that she tells us it to our faces."

"And she makes us clean her house repeatedly," Thad added.

"We've only been there a day and we're already slaves!" Sebastian said, "It's worse than I imagined."

Nick bit his lip; he almost felt bad for having such a good time with Jeff and his family, even if the farm terrified him a little.

"And all she constantly goes on about is her son," Sebastian continued, "It's always: "Hunter's so wonderful" or "Hunter's in the air force, he's doing more for his country than you two ever will". I shouldn't be surprised if she believes that her son is going to win this war single-handedly."

Nick stifled a laugh at that.

"I bet he's a right stuck up…"

"Actually, I've heard that he's very nice," Nick quickly interrupted before his friend was exceedingly rude. "He's one of Jeff's closest friends."

"Maybe we'll meet him soon," Thad piped up, ever the peacemaker between his two friends. "Then we can decide what he's like."

Sebastian smirked.

"And how's Jeff then, Nicky-boy?" he asked, sounding rather suggestive. "I assume that you're staying with his family, considering that you keep following him around like a lost puppy; maybe if you stick your tongue out and start panting, you'll complete the illusion?"

"Shut up!" Nick snapped, instinctively glancing behind him to check that there was no one around to overhear them.

"You two do seem very close already," Thad said, "Where does he live?"

Nick gave the smaller boy a thankful smile since he'd brought the topic back to more sensible issues.

"About two miles out of town," he explained, "The Sterlings own a farm."

"Did you see all of the animals?" Thad asked eagerly, but his question was drowned out by Sebastian declaring, rather disgustedly:

"Ugh, mud, mud and more mud."

Suddenly, there were a few shouts from one corner of the school yard, opposite to where the three evacuees were standing.

"What's going on?" Thad asked, standing on his tiptoes to see.

"I have no idea," Sebastian said, not looking particularly interested at all.

Nick, meanwhile, was more engrossed in what was going on. A number of rather large boys, many of whom he was sure were in the same class as him, were surrounding someone, so that they were hidden from sight. The boys were shoving whoever they had cornered, as well as yelling taunts and insults at them, most of which Nick could not hear properly.

He squinted against the afternoon sun to try and see who it was who was being targeted.

And then he saw it; a flash of bright blonde hair in the centre of the circle.

Suddenly, Nick knew exactly why Jeff had looked so terrified at the prospect of school.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, so you'll have to find out what is happening to Jeffy in the next chapter...though it's not too hard to work out :) And my oneshot, turned threeshot, should be up soon :)**

**Historical Points:**

**1. I think I mentioned this before, but schools in 1939 didn't actually go up to 18 years old, but for the sake of this, they do :)**

**2. Also, I may have made the school sound slightly too Victorian/Edwardian than it should have done for this history period :)**

**Thank you for reading, and please leave a review to tell me what you thought or to ask me a question about the history behind it :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Here's Chapter 5 after a long delay, sorry! To make up for it, this is a longer chapter, so I hope that's okay :) Thank you for the lovely response to this story :)**

**Also, as you have probably all seen, I have posted the first two parts of ****_A Boy By Any Other Name - _****my prompt from ****_magiclover222_**** - and the final part should be posted soon :)**

**Warning: Bullying.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.**

* * *

Nick looked around for Jeff's friends, Trent and David, but quickly remembered that they both went home at lunchtime.

He only had one other option.

"Sebastian!" Nick turned back around to his friend, and caught his arm urgently. "I need your help!"

Sebastian frowned at first, and then looked back up at the boys over on the other side of the yard. Something clicked within his brain, and he knew exactly what Nick wanted him to do.

"No," he shook his head, "Nick, we are not getting involved in whatever is going on over there."

"But it's Jeff," Nick protested, "Sebastian, they're hurting Jeff!"

"It's our first day of school!" Seb retorted, "We don't want to get into a fight on our first day of school! And anyway, I'm sure Jeff can look after himself, he won't want you barging in there and defending him when he's already got the situation under control."

Nick literally fumed at his friend's suggestion.

"Does it look like Jeff has everything under control?" he cried, pointing in the direction of the bullies.

Just as Sebastian looked up again, he caught sight of one of the boys throwing a kick in the direction of whoever was being cornered, which he assumed would have to be Jeff. Now, as reluctant as he had been to join Nick in assisting the blonde boy, once he realised that the abuse was becoming physical, then he did not hesitate in agreeing to help.

"See?" Nick was still waiting for an answer.

"Yes, I see," Seb replied quickly, before turning to Thad. "Stay here, and try not to get involved. We'll be back in a minute."

Thad rolled his eyes at his friend's mothering.

"I'll be fine," he said, "I can look after myself, you know that."

"After what happened last summer," Sebastian started, "I…" But he was forced to abandon his reasoning when Nick grabbed his arm again and almost dragged him across the yard.

"Oi!" the smaller brunette yelled as they approached, trying to attract the attention of the other boys. "Oi!" he repeated when none of them turned around.

Slowly, a boy on the outside of the circle faced the two evacuees.

"What do you want?" he asked, frowning at their sudden appearance and intervention.

"We want you to stop hurting Jeff," Sebastian stepped up next to Nick as he spoke.

The boy in front of them scoffed.

"Did you seriously think that any of us would listen to you?" he asked, "Go away back to London or wherever you came from; we don't need the likes of you down here."

"Good," Sebastian snapped, "If I had the choice I wouldn't stay a minute longer here, especially not if the countryside is full of idiots like you. But sadly we can't just leave, so you'll have to deal with us here."

"And so, we're asking you politely now," Nick added, "Walk away from Jeff, and no one else gets hurt." He curled his hands into fists protectively, as he always did when one of his friends was in trouble.

"Hey, St. James, did you hear that?" the boy leaned into the circle and spoke to another boy, who appeared to be the group's leader. "These townies here want us to stop having our fun."

"Townies, huh?" a new voice asked, "Well, I'll bet it's the little one whose staying with Sterling here, isn't it?" There was a mocking laugh, and then a grunt of pain as a foot collided with someone's side; Jeff's, Nick knew.

"Yes, it is," Nick said defiantly, "And I've brought a friend, who's not so little!"

Beside him, Sebastian gave a short laugh.

"My, my, my," St. James said, stepping out of the circle to face both Nick and Sebastian, "You are intent on causing trouble, aren't you?"

Nick looked the other boy directly in the eyes.

"I believe that you're causing trouble," he said, "Now, Seb and I have come for Jeff."

He went to step around the older boy, but St. James blocked his path.

"Not so fast," he said, "Who said that we're giving up Jeff quite so easily?"

Nick practically growled, flexing his fingers and wrists experimentally.

"If you want a fight, St. James," he said, "Then you've come to the right place."

"Nick, no," Sebastian warned lowly; he might have been willing to stand up to the bullies, but he did not want Nick to start a fight, the small brunette had a habit of doing that when he got worked up, and Sebastian then found himself in the unfamiliar position of peacemaker.

But Nick shook Sebastian's advice off, and he stepped up so that he was almost nose to nose with St. James.

"Is that challenge, townie?" St. James asked, a cruel smile playing at the corner of his lips.

"I'd say so," Nick replied.

From the middle of the circle, Jeff lay on the floor with his eyes closed, desperately hoping that Nick would back down; he did not need the brunette getting hurt for him.

But both Sebastian and Jeff's wishes were not heard, and before anyone else had a chance to react, punches were flying between Nick and St. James.

"Jesse, leave it!" one of the other bullies cried, clearly recognising danger when he saw it.

It was to no avail, though, since both boys continued to fight.

To his right, Sebastian caught sight of another boy seemingly sizing Nick up so that he could join in with the fight. Sebastian may have been opposed to the fight in the first place, but, in the same way that it usually occurred, he couldn't resist proving himself or helping his friend.

And before too long, he'd thrown a hit at one of the other boys, who quickly began to fight back as well.

* * *

Over by the opposite wall, Thad watched in frustration as his friends' interference quickly turned into a schoolyard beating, with the bullies taking most of the hits, for Nick and Sebastian were experienced in this sort of fight, and they were sadly rather good at it too. It wasn't an achievement that Thad thought they should be pleased with, but he knew Nick, and he knew his short temper, which, when lost, could quickly descend into violence; and he also knew that Nick had never been proud of this trait of his character, but he never seemed to be able to control it.

The fighting was only ended when a few of the teachers came running out of the schoolhouse, shouting angrily at the boys that they would fetch their parents to punish them as they saw fit.

Reluctantly, Sebastian and another boy pulled Nick and Jesse St. James off of one another; Nick was sporting a black eye and a split lip, while Jesse had a cut down his cheek and his nose was bleeding.

Sebastian was about to reprimand his friend for his stupidity with his rash decisions, when Nick suddenly remembered why they had been fighting in the first place.

"Jeff!" he cried urgently, and he ran from Sebastian's grip around to where the blonde boy was still curled up on the floor.

He sank down immediately by his friend's side and shook him gently.

"Is it all over?" Jeff asked weakly, opening one eye and surveying his surroundings cautiously.

"It's over," Nick nodded, as he helped the blonde to his feet, keeping a firm grip on his waist as he stood. "Now, are you hurt?"

Jeff shook his head.

"No more that usual," he said, "It wasn't too bad this time around. Thank you, you know, for saving me." For the first time since he'd gotten up, he studied Nick's face properly. "But, Nicky, are _you_ alright?"

Nick smiled at Jeff's concern.

"Yes, I'm fine," he said.

"But your eye…" Jeff protested.

"I'm fine," Nick reiterated reassuringly. "I've had worse."

Jeff looked at him sympathetically.

"My mum is going to flip when she sees you," he said, "You shan't be able to escape her all evening as she plasters old family herbal remedies onto your eye, one after the other."

Nick grimaced.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Boys!" the shrill call of Miss Bailey interrupted them, and she made them follow her into the schoolhouse, along with the rest of the offenders.

As they passed, St. James leaned over to Sebastian and Nick.

"I'll get you back for that," he hissed, "Just you wait and see."

Sebastian raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

"We're more than a match for you," he said, "We practically welcome your challenge."

Nick agreed with him, and Jesse disappeared into another classroom before any more words could be exchanged.

Behind Nick, Jeff pressed his lips together in a worried line; he didn't think that it was a good idea for Nick and Sebastian to bait Jesse in the way that they were. Who knew what Jesse St. James could do?

The boys were subjected to a lecture from Miss Bailey on why fighting in the schoolyard was not appropriate, and how their injuries would serve as part of a suitable punishment; she looked at Nick when she said this. But she added that each boy would have to write lines during their lunch hour for the next week to keep them out of trouble.

Jeff was excused from this, of course, since he had been the victim and not the instigator, but he still sat beside Nick as Miss Bailey passed judgement. At one point, when Nick realised how much his eye and split lip were starting to throb painfully, the blonde boy even reached over to take the brunette's hand and clasp their palms together tightly.

Nick gave him a grateful smile for that.

* * *

After school, they walked as far as the Claringtons' house with Thad and Sebastian. They then left them at the garden gate, wishing them luck when facing Mrs Clarington and explaining the bruise forming on Sebastian's jaw.

Trent and David departed afterwards, heading off to David's house, where Trent's mother was expecting him, having spent the afternoon with David's mother.

Nick and Jeff then carried on alone to the sweetshop in the village.

"What do you want?" Jeff asked, "You can have anything that you want."

The blonde boy practically skipped into the shop, and greeted the woman behind the counter brightly.

"Good afternoon, Jeffrey," the woman said, smiling warmly at the boy, who was clearly a regular customer of hers. "And who's this?" She turned to Nick, frowning a little at the state of his eye.

"This is Nick," Jeff said happily, "He's the townie who is staying with us. Nick, this is Mrs Jones."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Nick said politely, offering his hand to Mrs Jones.

The woman shot Jeff a knowing look and winked at him.

"Such manners," she said appreciatively, "It's a shame that more young people around here weren't more like you, Nick."

Nick blushed at the praise.

"Now, now, don't be embarrassed," Mrs Jones said, "Manners are wonderful things to have, and you've got an advantage having them. They'll come in handy later when you meet that special someone." She winked at Nick this time, and he almost choked on thin air.

"Of course," he said, "I hadn't really considered that yet."

"Oh well, don't forget about the possibility of it happening sooner than you think," Mrs Jones continued, "Nor forget that it could be anyone, so you don't have to look too far away from home."

Her advice puzzled Nick; was she trying to suggest something that he didn't even know about? Anyway, she seemed kindly enough, so maybe she was just trying to be helpful.

"Don't talk in riddles to him, Mrs Jones," Jeff insisted, tugging on Nick's arm. "You know that no one ever understands."

The woman behind the counter laughed jovially.

"No, you don't ever understand, Jeffrey," she said, "That's not everyone."

Jeff grumbled something under his breath, and then dragged Nick over to the side to point out all of the sweets to him.

"You can have anything, Nicky," he said eagerly, "It doesn't matter what you get, because I'll eat any sweet that's put in front of me."

"That's true," Mrs Jones added helpfully.

Nick grinned at Jeff's excitement, and debated whether or not to decline the offer of sweets entirely since the blonde seemed hyper enough without the extra sugar.

"What about sherbet, can we get sherbet?" Jeff seemed to forget within a few seconds that he had just offered to let Nick choose the sweets they were going to get.

"We can have sherbet if you want," Nick said, smiling fondly at the blonde boy, who whooped in joy and proceeded to produce the penny for Mrs Jones. She took the offered coin with a smile, and poured out their allowance of sherbet.

"Two lollipops, boys?" she asked, holding out the jar so that they could select the two that they wanted.

Jeff reacted like a five year old as he happily chose a strawberry one and dipped it greedily into the sherbet bag that he was holding. Nick, on the other hand, took a lollipop in a much more civilised manner, and waited until Jeff had offered him the sherbet before he ate any.

"Thank you, boys, see you soon," Mrs Jones called to them as they left the shop.

"Thank you, Mrs Jones!" Jeff called in return, and Nick waved politely.

They then turned up the high street and headed back across the fields to the Sterlings' farm. Josie Sterling met them in the yard, and, just as Jeff had predicted, took one look at Nick's injuries and dragged him inside to apply some sort of cream to each of his bruises, while Jeff went and helped his father check on all of the animals, as well as ready some of the crops for harvesting.

When Jeff returned later that evening, Nick was still sat in their kitchen, some sort of cream around his eye while Mrs Sterling was making copious amounts of tea.

"Mum, what are you doing to Nick?" Jeff asked, sounding mildly suspicious as to what his mother was putting his friend through.

"I'm just helping that bruise on his eye," Josie Sterling said, "And now I'm making him a cup of tea, would you like one as well, dear? You know, tea fixes everything." She grinned widely at her son, who laughed and shook his head.

"Of course, it does," he agreed, "And yes, please, I'd love some."

Jeff sat down next to the brunette, who gave him a weak smile, clearly having been told not to move while the cream was still around his eye.

"So, Nick, what actually happened to you?" Josie Sterling asked, handing the boys a mug full of steaming liquid each and sitting down at the kitchen table.

Nick glanced quickly at Jeff, who subtly gave him a pleading look and shook his head slightly.

"I, er, a book fell on me, Mrs, er, Josie," the brunette stuttered out, hurriedly trying to think of a plausible excuse. "A, er, very heavy book."

Mrs Sterling nodded understandingly, before getting up from her seat and heading out of the back door into the garden.

"Thank you," Jeff said as soon as his mother was out of earshot, "I can't let her know, or Dad, otherwise they'll try and get involved; Dad will go and see Jesse's dad or something like that, and then everyone will know how stupid I am and how…"

"Wait," Nick interrupted, "Wait, Jeff, you're not stupid; being bullied doesn't mean that _you're _stupid, it means that the _bullies_ are stupid. Why would they pick on you anyway? You're kind, and funny, and…" Nick had to stop himself from adding 'beautiful' as an adjective to describe Jeff when he realised how strange and awkward that would make the conversation.

"They hate me because I'm clever," Jeff said, hanging his head as though being advanced academically was something to be ashamed about.

"They're jealous of you, Jeff," Nick said, reaching out and putting an arm around the blonde boy's shoulders. "You're everything that they want to be, but aren't, and so they think that by bullying you, they'll feel better about themselves. But don't you worry now, because I'm going to protect you."

Jeff giggled a little at that.

"My knight in shining armour," he teased, leaning into Nick's side and marvelling at how nice it felt to just be held someone else.

"Of course," Nick laughed, but he couldn't help admitting to himself that he quite liked the sound of that.

* * *

Nick had been in Kent for over three weeks when he found himself being shaken awake urgently by Jeff at some awfully early time in the morning.

"What is it?" he asked, rolling over and watching as Jeff's face swum into view.

"Get up," Jeff said, sounding far too excited than he should have done at that sort of time.

"I don't want to," Nick protested, pulling the blankets back over himself when he remembered that it was Saturday, and therefore, he shouldn't have had to get up so early.

"Nicky," Jeff whined, tugging at the blankets in an attempt to remove them, but it just made Nick cling to them tighter. "Get up!"

"Why?" Nick mumbled into his pillow, "It's too early, Jeff."

"But we have something exciting to do today," the blonde persisted, and Nick was reminded of the fact that Jeff had promised him a surprise the night before when they'd been about to go to sleep.

"But surely we don't have to be up this early," Nick said, "Your parents aren't even up yet, Jeff, and you know that they always get up first."

"Nicky," Jeff whined again, "You're no fun. Fine."

Nick heard Jeff's footsteps shuffling on the floorboards and he sighed happily, before curling up into his blankets again and preparing to fall back asleep.

However, his peace did not last for long; as soon as he closed his eyes he heard a skittering noise and rolled over to see what it was. Too late, he realised it had been the sound of the blonde's socks sliding over the floor and he only had time to gasp as the blonde launched himself into the air and fell on top of him.

Nick squeaked loudly as the blonde's body collided with his own and crushed the air from his lungs. Waving his arms madly in an attempt to get Jeff to move, Nick tried to comprehend the fact that his best friend was now lying directly on top of him, and currently had his face buried in his neck.

No, not awkward at all…

"Jeff, what are you doing?"

The blonde boy giggled.

"See, you're awake," he said, "It worked."

"Couldn't you have found a method that involved less, er, lying on top of me?"

"No," Jeff laughed, "Sorry."

Still laughing to himself, he sat up, pulling Nick with him.

"Now, come on, Nicky," he said, "I've got something exciting for us to do today."

Grudgingly Nick obeyed, and threw the covers off his bed so that he could get up, noticing as he did so that Jeff was already dressed.

"I'll meet you downstairs," Jeff said, "I'll make us some breakfast."

Nick agreed readily, feeling as though some food would definitely wake him up some more, although the shock of Jeff jumping on him had already done a particularly good job.

Ten minutes later, he was fully dressed, and he headed down the stairs to find Jeff in the kitchen. When he did, the blonde was fussing over some toast on the counter, as well as trying to pour out cups of tea for them both as well.

"Careful," Nick warned, taking the kettle from Jeff before he spilt boiling hot water down himself. "What's with all the rush?"

Jeff blushed sheepishly.

"I wanted everything to be ready for you when you came down," he admitted.

"Jeff, that's so sweet," Nick smiled, "But you really didn't have to."

Jeff blushed some more and muttered something that sounded like:

"I wanted to."

"So, where are we going then?" Nick asked, once they'd both sat down with their cups of tea.

"It's a surprise," Jeff still refused to give too much away, but he did point to a large hamper by the back door. "Though I can't believe that you didn't see that sitting there."

"What is it?" Nick asked, sounding puzzled as he got down from the table to inspect the basket. "Jeff, there's an entire feast here!"

"I know," Jeff smiled, "That's why I came rushing down here, to put all of it in there."

"But why?" Nick persisted, "I want to know."

"We're going to meet someone special," Jeff said, "And that's all I'm saying."

Nick huffed in annoyance but didn't push the subject any further.

"Do we need to tell your parents where we're going?" the brunette asked, as he and Jeff balanced the hamper between them; it was so heavy and full that it needed both of them to lift it.

"No, they've already given us permission to go this early," Jeff said, "And Dad has loaned us the cart for the day."

Nick's eyes widened.

"How far are we going?" he asked.

"Patience, Nicky," Jeff grinned, pushing the hamper into the back of the cart, and then jumping up into the seat at the front. "Now, do you want to ride up front with me?"

Nick agreed readily, and Jeff hauled him up so that he was sat next to him. In silence, Jeff flicked the reins and the horse, Bella, began to walk steadily down the lane.

They continued without speaking a for a while, as Jeff concentrated on the road and Nick tried to work out where they could be going, for the sun had finally risen, but there was no one else about in the village or the fields.

Eventually, Nick realised that he recognised the way that they were going, only the last time that he had travelled on the same road, he had been going in the opposite direction.

"Jeff," he said slowly, "Are we going to the station?"

Jeff nodded eagerly.

"You finally guessed!" he cried, "There's a very special train that will be getting in at half eight, and we're going to meet it."

"It isn't going to be more evacuees, is it?" Nick asked, sounding slightly concerned that someone else might be coming to stay at the Sterlings' farm with him.

Jeff laughed.

"Of course not," he said. "We don't have room for any more evacuees. No, this is someone different; an old friend of mine."

Nick looked puzzled; there was no way that he could figure out who they were going to meet since he didn't know all of Jeff's friends.

Before too long, they were pulling up in front of the stationhouse, and Jeff jumped down and tied Bella to a lamppost, before returning to give Nick a hand down to the ground.

"Will Bella be alright here on her own?" Nick asked, looking around himself as though someone would jump out at any moment and steal away their horse.

"Sure, she will," Jeff replied, "Anyway, we'll only be waiting on the platform; I plan to leave the food here too."

Still a little doubtful, Nick followed Jeff into the stationhouse, nevertheless.

"Good morning, Jeffrey," the man at the ticket office greeted them, "Good morning, Nicholas." How he knew Nick's name, Nick had no idea. "The train has been delayed a little, but it should be here in several minutes." How he knew which train they were there for also surprised Nick.

"Alright, thank you, Pete," Jeff nodded, as he pushed through the doors on the other side and onto the platform.

The first thing that Nick noticed was the chorus of voices that greeted them:

"Where have you been?"

"You could have missed it!"

"I still have no idea why we're here."

The last comment was Sebastian, and Nick turned in surprise to find that both Seb and Thad were also waiting for the train, like he was, and they had no idea what was happening either.

"Trent and David woke us up ridiculously early," Sebastian complained, "And they won't tell us anything."

"Jeff wouldn't tell me either," Nick said.

"It's coming!" Trent's excited shout interrupted them, and Jeff pulled Nick over to stand next to him.

"What's happening?" Nick asked.

"Just wait and see," the blonde boy answered.

The train blew its whistle loudly as it rounded the corner into the station and came to a halt in a cloud of smoke. There was a moment of quiet before the clattering of doors being thrown open filled the air; or one door at least, since not many people seemed to be alighting.

"He's here!" Jeff cried happily, clapping his hands together as the smoke began to disperse and clear.

Halfway down the platform, a young man holding a briefcase was just closing the train door behind him. He turned and caught sight of the waving party outside of the stationhouse and he smiled, waving back eagerly.

"He's home," David grinned, "He's back home again."

The young man began to make his way down the platform, still mildly obscured by the smoke so that they couldn't properly make out his face.

"But who is it?" Nick asked, "I don't understand."

"Wes," a new and unfamiliar voice spoke, "My name is Wes Montgomery."

* * *

**A/N: Yay! Wes! Sorry again for the delay with this chapter, I hope that the next one will be done faster, but there's no guarantee, sadly :(**

**Thank you for reading, and please leave a review to tell me what you thought :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: And so, Chapter 6 with the arrival of Wes, who I think is awesome :) Thank you for the response to this story, I do love hearing what you have to say! **

**_A Boy By Any Other Name_**** is now complete, so do please read that if you haven't already :) And good news, ****_MeganThreeSex_****, I have finally started planning your oneshot, sorry once again for the delay :)**

**Also, if anyone would like to make a cover for this story, or any of my others, apart from _Second Star to the Right_, that would be very much appreciated! :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.**

* * *

"Wes," a new and unfamiliar voice spoke, "My name is Wes Montgomery."

Nick jumped in shock, and once he had recovered, he came face to face with a young man, just a year or two older than him, who was regarding him in amusement.

"And you are?" the newcomer, Wes, asked, "It's rather impolite to stare at someone you don't know with your mouth open; you look like a goldfish."

Nick frowned at the reprimand, but he quickly bit back his retort when he saw the way in which Wes' eyes were bright and friendly, giving away the fact that he had meant what he had said good-naturedly.

"I'm Nick," he finally managed to stutter out, "Nick Duval."

Wes nodded.

"Well, it's lovely to meet you, Nick," he said, "I assume that these two are your friends?" He motioned to Thad and Sebastian, who were still looking rather puzzled.

"Yes," Nick said, trying to feel less flustered and to not embarrass himself too much, "This is Sebastian, and this is Thad." The two boys in question did not respond, but instead just stared blankly at Wes.

"And I take it that you are staying with Jeff?" Wes turned his attention back to Nick.

"Yes, I am," Nick replied, wondering how the other boy had guessed that so easily.

"And Sebastian and Thad, I take it that you're at the Claringtons'?" Wes continued, which made both Sebastian and Thad's mouths fall open as well.

"He's magic," Thad whispered, "Or a mind reader."

Wes laughed.

"Neither, I'm afraid," he said, "I'll tell you more later, now, shall we be going?"

He turned to usher the other boys out of the station, when he was met with a squeal and an armful of Jeff.

"Not yet," the blonde boy cried, "You haven't greeted me yet; Nicky was keeping you to himself!"

"Hey!" Nick cried, glaring at Jeff, who just giggled.

"I didn't mean it really, Nicky," the blonde said, and Nick's frown immediately became a fond smile.

"Well, alright," Wes grinned, taking note of the exchange between Nick and Jeff, "Hello to you too, Jeff. Have you missed me?"

"What do you think?" Jeff asked, hugging the older boy so tight that Wes feared that his head might fall off. "Did you miss me?"

Wes rolled his eyes.

"Of course, Jeffrey," he said, earning a mock hit when he used Jeff's full name, "Now, could you restore the circulation to my brain and let go of me?"

Jeff smiled sheepishly, and let the other boy go.

"Sorry," he muttered, "I forget about that sometimes."

Wes shook his head and ruffled Jeff's hair.

"And hello to you two as well," he said, waving at Trent and David, who waved back. "I would have given you a hug as well, but Jeff sort of attacked me."

"It's no problem," Trent said, "We knew that he was going to do that."

"Yeah, it's Jeff," David chipped in, as though that it explained everything.

"Come on," Jeff's eager voice interrupted them all, "Let's go, I have the cart and the food. Can we go now, please?"

He grabbed hold of Wes' arm and dragged the older boy out through the stationhouse; the rest of the boys trailed behind.

"Welcome back, Wesley," Pete at the ticket office said, as they passed through. "It's good to see you again."

"Good to see you too, sir," Wes replied, as he was pulled out of the door by Jeff before he could say anything else.

Nick hung back in the party, and walked by himself; in just a few seconds, he appeared to have been forgotten by Jeff for someone else, clearly a much older friend, and he was feeling rather despondent about the whole exchange.

"Something wrong, Nick?" Trent asked, dropping back from where he was walking with David to fall in step with the other boy.

Nick shrugged.

"I think Jeff's forgotten about me," he said, kicking at a stone in frustration.

"No, he hasn't," Trent reassured him, "It's just that he hasn't seen Wes in a few months, and Wes is like an older brother to him; he's just glad to see him. Trust me, he's not just going to leave you alone because Wes is here."

Nick mumbled something and kept his eyes fixed on the ground.

"Thanks," he said quietly, "I'll get over it in a minute, I'm sure."

Trent gave him an awkward pat on the back, catching sight of Jeff looking over at the two of them, and smiling as the blonde boy began making his way over.

"You're not upsetting Nick, are you, Trent?" Jeff asked protectively, looking from Nick's downcast expression to Trent's knowing grin.

"Of course not," Trent said, "I was just telling him something, that's all."

Jeff frowned.

"Don't be sad, Nicky," he said, reaching for the brunette's hand and squeezing it gently, "Come on, you're going to sit upfront with me in the cart, and I don't want you to be sad."

The blonde boy pouted at that point, and Nick couldn't help but smile at him.

"I'm fine, Jeff," he said, "Alright, let's go."

As Jeff dragged him away in the direction of the cart, he looked back at Trent and mouthed a thank you at him, to which the other boy winked suggestively.

Once everyone was seated, and they were well on their way down the road, Wes turned to Trent and raised an eyebrow at him questioningly. Trent frowned back in confusion, until Wes threw a subtle nod in Nick and Jeff's general direction, and then he grinned mischievously.

"So?" Wes asked.

"Definitely," Trent agreed.

* * *

"Are we there yet?" Sebastian whined from his seat at the back of the cart.

They'd been travelling for only around fifteen minutes, but the boy was already getting bored, and every time they jolted over a patch of unmade road, he complained about how it uncomfortable everything was; he'd even gone so far to suggest that Jeff should invest in some cushions for the wooden seats.

"No, Seb," Thad said from where he was sat opposite his friend, "That's the third time that you've asked that in almost as many minutes."

Seb groaned.

"Where can we be going that is taking such a long time?" he asked. "And Jeff, why haven't your parents invested in a car yet?"

Jeff gasped in shock and leant forward to give Bella a sympathetic pat.

"Don't listen to him," he whispered to the horse, "You're better than a car any day. He didn't really mean it."

Sebastian rolled his eyes.

"It's a horse," he said, "It can't hear what I said."

He was met with a number of gasps from around him, including Thad.

"Don't say something like that in front of Jeff," Trent advised, "He loves horses, and he's lived on a farm for the whole of his life so they're like his siblings."

"If you say something like that again, Seb," Jeff called back, "I shall make you walk to where we're going, so be quiet."

Sebastian huffed loudly, but he was finally silent.

"He didn't mean it personally," Nick said to Jeff, but the blonde boy was too busy talking to Bella again and so he didn't hear him.

After ten more minutes, they were finally heading up a small lane towards a wooded field at the top of a hill. Nick guessed that this was their destination, as the area appeared deserted and behind him, Wes and David were preparing to lift the hamper down to the ground.

"This is it," Jeff announced, halting Bella and jumping down to untie her from the reins. "I'm just going to take Bella into that field over there, so can someone else deal with the food?"

"Already on it," David said, nodding at where he and Wes had the basket between them.

Thad, Sebastian and Trent walked on ahead to find somewhere to sit, with David and Wes following behind them; Nick hung back to wait for Jeff.

The brunette watched as the blonde boy gave Bella a pat and let her go free into the field.

"Be good, girl!" he called to her, as he hurried back to the gate. "I'll be back later."

Nick laughed at the sight; Jeff really did love his animals.

At that sound of Nick's laughter, Jeff turned around in surprise.

"Are you waiting for me?" he asked, almost seeming rather flattered by the idea.

"Of course," Nick said, "Is there something wrong with that?"

Jeff blushed.

"No," he said, "It's nice, that's all." He swallowed nervously and recovered himself. "Come on, let's go and find the others. I'm starving."

He threw a grin at Nick, and then took off up the hill towards the trees.

"I'll race you!" he called.

"No fair!" Nick cried, "You got a head start!"

Jeff laughed to himself as he sprinted away and beat Nick by a long way. The brunette finally caught up with him once he had stopped and was bent over, catching his breath from laughing and running at the same time.

"You cheated," Nick said indignantly, colliding with Jeff and pushing him into a heap on the floor. The two boys collapsed together, a tangled mass of limbs, and started giggling at the childishness of their behaviour.

"You'll pay for that, Duval," Jeff said, pretending to sound stern, but instead just tickling Nick mercilessly until the brunette wasn't even able to speak probably. And then they fell back down again next to each other, grinning widely.

Nick rolled over so that that he was facing Jeff, and reached out to entwine the blonde's hand with his own. Unconsciously, Jeff shifted a little closer to Nick, nudging his foot gently with his own.

Neither spoke, though Nick was sure that the beating of his heart was audible.

"What are you doing?" Sebastian's voice interrupted their moment, and when they looked up, they saw that everyone was standing around and watching them intently.

"Yeah, the food's ready," David added, "Hurry up, guys."

Sighing, Nick got up and then offered a hand to Jeff, who took it and pulled himself into a standing position.

"You did say that you were starving," the brunette reminded his friend, whose stomach then rumbled loudly as if in reply.

Both boys descended into giggles again, and whatever had just happened between them previously was completely forgotten; maybe it was for the best at the moment.

* * *

The other boys had set up the food in a clearing among the trees, with Josie Sterling's best checked picnic blanket laid out for them all to sit on. Wes had poured them all some elderflower cordial, a special treat that Jeff's mother had allowed them to have for the special occasion, and also arranged their plates so that they could all sit in a circle together. Jeff immediately sat next to Wes, and pulled Nick down to sit on his other side.

Mrs Sterling had provided them with a vast amount of food that Nick was pretty sure they would not be able to finish, but instead found himself proved wrong when there was eventually nothing left, even though Sebastian claimed to be still hungry.

"So, Wes, how's your work going?" Jeff asked, once they were all finished and now lying out in the sun under the trees.

"You know that I can't tell you anything about it," the older boy smiled, "But it's going good at the moment."

"What do you do exactly?" Thad asked, sounding interested.

"I'm a scientist," Wes explained, "I'm helping with the war effort with my research."

"But he won't tell us what his research is," Jeff complained, kicking Wes' leg gently in annoyance.

"That's because it's classified."

"And?" Jeff persisted, "We won't tell anyone!"

Wes grinned.

"Sadly there wasn't a clause on my contract that said 'do not speak of this, except to Jeff Sterling, because he can keep a secret'."

"There should have been," Jeff mumbled, to which everyone else laughed.

"You said that you would tell us how you knew where we were staying," Thad piped up, and the rest of the boys murmured their agreement as they turned to Wes for his explanation.

The older boy smiled.

"It was simple," he said, "As we pulled into the station, I looked out of the window to see you all waiting and realised that there were three unfamiliar faces there as well; I immediately guessed that you would be the evacuees that Jeff wrote to me about when it was first announced that you would be coming down from London. I also saw Nick standing closer to Jeff than the rest of you, and so I assumed that he must be the evacuee who was staying at the Sterlings' farm."

"And what about us?" Sebastian asked, "How did you know that we were staying at the Claringtons?"

"That was a little more difficult," Wes said, "But not impossible. I received a letter from Hunter a few days ago after he heard that I was coming back down here, and he told me that his mother had written to him to tell him about the two evacuees that she'd had to take in. She'd said that she'd wanted two small girls, but had instead had ended up with two teenage boys. I guessed that there couldn't be many teenage evacuees, and so when I saw you, I made a lucky assumption, which turned out to be correct."

"I bet Mrs Clarington wrote to her son and told us how awful we were," Sebastian said, rolling onto his back and staring at the sky, "She absolutely hates us."

Wes laughed.

"Actually, I think she said something about you being even worse than Hunter himself," he said, "And that you were two of the laziest boys that she'd ever met. It's alright though, since Hunter immediately wrote back and told her that she should get over the fact that you aren't him and aren't girls, and basically to just deal with it." He looked over at Sebastian and Thad. "Hunter knows what his parents are like."

"It's still not very nice," Thad muttered.

"I know," Wes said, "But Hunter says that he'll be home in a few weeks, and then everything should be better."

"Hunter's coming home?" Jeff cried happily, throwing his arms in the air at Wes' words.

Wes nodded.

"We're all going to be together!" the blonde shouted, "This is the best!"

Beside him, Nick smiled and shook his head at his friend's antics.

"And you can meet Hunter, Nicky," Jeff continued, "And Sebastian and Thad, you can meet him too, since he'll be staying with you."

The other boys rolled their eyes at Jeff's enthusiasm, and turned away to begin their own conversations. Jeff didn't seem to care that they weren't listening anymore, because he still had Nick, who was lying next to him on his back, watching the clouds drift across the sky.

"That one looks like a bicycle," Nick commented suddenly, "And I think that one is a duck. What can you see, Jeff?"

The blonde boy shrugged.

"Clouds," he said, "But definitely no bicycles, that's far too complicated for cloud shapes."

Nick stuck his tongue out childishly.

"I can see what I want," he said, "And I definitely saw a bicycle. Anyway, I'm enjoying myself just cloud watching, until I came here, I'd never really had a chance to do it; it's quite relaxing."

"It's quite boring," Jeff countered. "Come on, Nicky, let's go and do something fun." He punctuated each word by poking Nick in the ribs.

"Stop it," Nick squirmed away from Jeff, "You know that I'm ticklish."

Reluctantly, Jeff ceased what he was doing, and tugged on Nick's hand instead.

"Please," he said, "Can we go somewhere else?"

Nick laughed softly.

"But I thought that you wanted to stay with Wes?" he said.

"I do, but he's talking about boring stuff," Jeff made a face, "And I don't want to talk about boring stuff."

Nick cast a glance over at the other boys, who were listening to Wes talk about the current affairs in London due to the war; part of him wanted to stay and hear more about his city, but the other part wanted to go with Jeff.

In the end, he chose Jeff.

"Fine," he said, "What do you want to do?"

"It's a surprise," Jeff said for the second time that day; Nick was convinced that everything was a surprise when he was with the blonde boy. "Just follow me."

"Alright."

The two boys got up silently and Nick let his friend lead him away, the rest of their party seeming not to notice them leave.

They walked without talking for a bit, Nick just trailing behind Jeff and trying to work out where they were headed, except all he could see were trees, trees and more trees, since Jeff appeared to be heading deeper into the woods.

"Jeff," Nick called out tentatively, causing the blonde boy, who was a few feet ahead, to turn around. "Are we doing something to do with trees, by any chance?"

Jeff clapped his hands together happily.

"Yes," he nodded eagerly, "I'm going to teach you how to climb one."

Nick immediately paled and stood still on the spot, glancing behind him to where he knew the other boys were sitting, just out of sight.

"No," Jeff said, "No turning back." He came back towards Nick and took one of his hands. "See, now you can't leave. Come on, it'll be fun, and anyway, I'll be there all of the time."

Nick bit his lip indecisively.

"But still…" he trailed away, "Isn't it dangerous?"

"But Nicky," Jeff whined, becoming increasingly desperate that he wasn't going to get his own way, "I've always said that I was going to make you climb a tree, and now is that time. Look, I'm always doing it, and have I hurt myself yet?"

"No," Nick said doubtfully, "But your parents said that you might do one day."

Jeff waved his concerns away.

"Well, if I do," he said, "Today is not that day. Please, Nicky, it'll only be a little tree; and then once you've climbed one tree, you won't be able to help climb another, and another, until you've climbed one of the really big trees and then…"

"Jeff," Nick put a hand on his friend's arm to stop his ramblings, "I'll climb one tree, and that's it."

"Yes!" Jeff cried, "I knew that you wouldn't let me down."

In his eagerness, he half dragged Nick through the woodland, until they were standing in front of the tree that he had decided would be suitable; it wasn't especially tall, but there were no small branches that might possibly snap if they stepped on them.

"Is this it?" Nick asked, looking up and down the tree in front of him. He wasn't exactly an expert on trees, but he was pretty sure that this one would not classify as a small tree, like Jeff had said it was.

Jeff nodded.

"It's a good practice tree," he said, "It was one of the first ones that I climbed; Dad took me out here when I was younger and let me climb any ones that I wanted."

Nick raised an eyebrow.

"I got the impression that your father didn't really approve of your climbing."

"He doesn't anymore, since I started doing it regularly, but he encouraged it when I was younger. But, enough about me, let's get you up this tree, shall we?"

Jeff motioned for Nick to approach the tree with him, and then patted a low branch, around waist height for both of them, though they did have a reasonably significant height difference.

"This one first," the blonde instructed, "Put your foot on it and grab the next branch up that you can easily reach, before pulling yourself up completely."

"Aren't you going first?"

"I'll come up in a second, you're going first so that you don't leave as soon as I'm halfway up there."

Nick blushed.

"I wouldn't do that," he defended himself, as Jeff laughed. "Fine," he admitted, "Maybe I would."

Jeff continued to laugh, while still beckoning for Nick to step onto the branch. Unwillingly, the brunette complied, and soon he was standing up and clinging to the branch above him which was keeping him stable.

"Next one," Jeff said, still on the ground and pointing out another branch to Nick, "It's just a little higher up and all you have to do is climb onto it the same way that you did with the last one, except this time you must make sure that you're always holding on to whichever other branch that you can, otherwise you might overbalance and fall."

Nick gulped, but he still managed to reach out with one arm and grasp a branch above his head, while also swinging one leg up to meet the branch that Jeff had been indicating, and somehow, he found himself still upright in the tree several moments later.

"Alright, I'm going to come up now," Jeff said, swinging himself onto the first branch, a second one, and finally coming to rest on a third above Nick's head.

The brunette watched him appreciatively as he moved so gracefully that the tree didn't even shake with his movements, and if Nick had not seen him go past, he would not even have known that he was there. And so, Nick decided that there was something extraordinarily beautiful about Jeff when he was climbing; maybe it was the way that he moved, or maybe it was the way that the sun was reflecting so brightly in his hair that his entire being seemed to glow.

"Nick!" Jeff's voice interrupted his inner thoughts. "Nick, can you hear me? Oh no, have you gone into shock? Help! What if you've gone into shock because climbing this tree has scared you? Nick, talk to me!"

Nick couldn't help the giggle that escaped him at the sound of Jeff panicking; for as clever as his friend was academically, he sometimes forgot about common sense, and was prone to worrying over anything at all.

Nick's laugh cut off Jeff's rambling, and he looked down in surprise.

"Nicky?" he asked, "You're fine?"

"Of course, I'm fine," Nick replied, "This isn't half as bad as it looked."

Above him, Jeff broke out into the biggest smile as he realised that his friend was enjoying his favourite activity.

"Well, let's continue then!" he cried, moving off his branch to a higher one so that Nick could take his place.

They went on like this for a while, each time that Jeff moved, Nick would climb up and take his place, until they were sitting side by side at the very top.

"Isn't pretty up here?" Jeff said, looking around himself, "If you want to, we can try the taller trees next?"

Nick nodded.

"I feel very tall and powerful up here," he said, "And yes, maybe we can try another tree. But we have got to get down from this one first."

"No problem," Jeff said, "Let me go one step in front of you so that you can see the way that I'm getting down."

He slid from the branch that he was sitting on down to the one below, taking hold of a branch to his right as he did so, and leaving him standing just a little below where Nick was still perched. Once he was one more branch down, he motioned for Nick to follow him.

"Your turn now," he said, "Just do what I did."

Nick nodded, and slipped downwards, landing safely on the next branch.

Everything was going smoothly until Jeff climbed down on the third to last branch, while Nick was still above him and waiting to move on.

Just as Jeff was about to readjust which branch he was holding onto, the one under his feet made a snapping noise, and it fell away, leaving the blonde just enough time to grab a secure hold with his hands before he could be plunged downwards as well.

"Jeff!" Nick cried in panic, as his friend was left dangling from the tree precariously.

Using all of the strength in his arms, Jeff hauled himself upwards until he could place his feet on the same branch that Nick was sitting on.

"Nick," he said, "Can you move up one branch please? This is the only one that I can reach and I don't know if it'll take our weight together."

Nick agreed, and climbed upwards again, allowing Jeff to sit himself on the branch that he had previously been on.

"I thought that you said this tree was a good practice tree?" the brunette boy said, "Yet, I don't think random branches just snapping is a particularly good thing."

Jeff frowned.

"It was fine earlier when we both stepped on it," he said, "Maybe that was what put too much strain on it. It is an old tree, maybe it's rotting." He paused to pat the branch he was sitting on sympathetically. "That would be a shame."

"Jeff," Nick said slowly, "As touching as your care for the tree is, we have a bigger problem: how are we going to get down?"

Jeff looked down from the branch that he was sitting on, judging the gap between him and the next branch and him and the ground; both were too far away to risk just jumping.

He looked up at Nick with a sheepish look on his face.

"I'm really sorry, Nick," he said, "But I think we're stuck."

* * *

**A/N: Oh, Jeffy and his trees...they'd get him in trouble eventually! And seriously, gotta love Wes - he's awesome! :) I also seem to like referencing Mary Poppins...**

**Historical Points (I kinda neglected these in the last chapter, so if there were any, or if anything was unclear, please tell me!):**

**1. This is a rather vague one, but obviously Jeff's family still use their horse and cart, but in the towns and cities, these were virtually never seen and cars had become a common sight - in the 1930s, the 20mph speed limit was abolished and it led to the highest number of road casualities in England (1941).**

**2. And the trains, probably obvious from the first and second chapters as well, were obviously steam engines with slam doors - which basically means that you can open and close them whenever you want, and so led to many people running after trains, opening the doors and clambering aboard while it is moving!**

**Thank you for reading, and please leave a review to tell me what you thought or to ask a question about the history behind this story :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Here's Chapter 7 - it's more of a chapter to clear up the last one and also set up a future storyline, but I hope you still enjoy it :) It's a little shorter than the last two, but I'm hoping to have another one posted soon :)**

**Thank you to _itsonlyimpossibleuntilitsnot_ for the wonderful cover for this story - and if anyone wants to do some more for my other stories, I would be very grateful :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee and I do not own Keep The Home Fires Burning.**

* * *

"Has anyone seen Nick or Jeff?" Trent asked suddenly, glancing behind him randomly at one point, only to discover that their two friends were no longer lying behind them. "They seemed to have disappeared."

The rest of the boys frowned in confusion.

"I did notice that they'd gone rather quiet," David remarked, "But I didn't think anything of it."

"It's a bit rude of them just to walk off," Sebastian commented, "Almost as though they weren't interested in our conversation."

"They probably weren't," Thad said, "You know that sometimes they are only interested in each other."

"More like all of the time," Trent added, laughing to himself.

"I saw them go."

All eyes turned on Wes when he spoke.

"You did?" Thad asked, to which the older boy nodded.

"Of course," he said, "I could see them in my peripheral vision. Thad and Sebastian, you had your backs to them; Trent, you were sitting behind me, therefore, you could not see them; and David, I distinctly remember that you were staring at the sky when they left, so you would not have noticed either."

Thad and Sebastian both turned to David and Trent, who both shrugged; they'd known Wes for years and still couldn't understand him.

"So, you saw them go," Sebastian said, still convinced that Wes' knowledge was partly just lucky guesses, "That doesn't help us as to where they might have gone; they could have left the woods and gone anywhere by now."

Wes shook his head.

"They haven't left the woods," he said.

"How do you know that?" Sebastian demanded, not wanting to be proved wrong in his assumptions as to Wes' character.

"I saw them leave," Wes explained, "They walked in a westerly direction, towards the centre of these woods; if they had wanted to leave for the fields, they would have gone north or south, as both of these directions lead to the thinnest patches of trees and the closest routes to the fields."

"So, they've gone west," Seb jumped up, "Let's go and find them."

The others got up from the ground as well, but Wes remained seated.

"Why should we go and find them?" he asked, "Why should we interrupt their time when we don't need them for anything urgent?"

Sebastian groaned.

"That's no fun!" he grumbled, "Can't we go and surprise them?"

Wes locked eyes with him, daring him to defy what he had just said. The rest of the group watched the two with fascination; both had rather dominant personalities, but in different ways, while Wes based himself on facts and what he believed was right, Sebastian acted on what he wanted, and how much he could control people with just his force of character.

There was a silence between the two of them as they waited for the other to make the first move. Wes wanted Sebastian to back down and admit that they didn't need to disturb Nick and Jeff in whatever they were doing. Sebastian wanted Wes to let him have some fun, and to stop being so uptight with all of his decisions.

"Sebastian?" Thad said tentatively, "Wes?"

He received no reply.

The silence was only shattered when a cry echoed through the trees around them:

"Help!"

Sebastian and Wes broke away from their staring match at the same time; Wes conceding that it was not resolved, while Sebastian counted it as a victory.

"That was Jeff," Trent spoke, turning to Wes for help.

"I know," the older boy replied.

"What do you think that he's done this time?" David asked.

"Something meaning that Nick can't run for help either," Wes said grimly, "Come on, let's go and find them, shall we?"

Thad, Trent and David nodded, and set off determinedly in the direction of the shout.

Behind them, Sebastian muttered to himself in annoyance.

"If we'd gone when I'd said we should've done, we'd have been there already."

There was another shout.

"I mean, what if they've really got themselves in a mess?" he continued, "Then it'll be all Wes' fault."

* * *

"Do you think they've heard us?" Jeff asked, turning around slightly to look up at Nick, who was seated above him.

"I don't know," Nick replied, looking increasingly panicked, "Shout again; this time louder."

Jeff turned back to look out across the woods, but he couldn't see far enough to catch a glimpse of where they'd left their friends.

"Help!" he yelled again, hoping that this time they might get some sign that someone had heard them.

"I still can't hear anything," Nick said, "What will happen if they don't ever hear us?"

"They will," he said, "And if they don't, they'll come looking for us at some point when they notice that we're not with them." He reached up to place a hand reassuringly on Nick's knee, where his legs were dangling over the branch that he was perched on.

"I hope so," the brunette mumbled morosely, "And then once we're down on solid ground again, I'm never going up a tree again."

"No, don't say that, Nicky," Jeff protested, "Not all trees are going to collapse underneath you like this one." In his annoyance, he stuck his foot out and kicked at the trunk, causing the surrounding branches to shake a little. "Stupid tree."

Nick squealed in shock as the branch he was sitting on wobbled with the impact.

"Jeff!" he cried, "I almost fell off then."

The blonde looked rather sheepish at that, and quickly apologised.

There was a short silence between them, before Jeff began humming under his breath.

"Jeff, what are you doing?"

"I'm just trying to fill the quietness," Jeff replied.

Nick raised an eyebrow.

"You couldn't think of anything to say so you filled the gap with a rendition of Keep The Home Fires Burning?"

Jeff shrugged.

"It's the first song I thought of," he defended himself, "I guess it's relevant, what with the war and everything now."

"I'm surprised that you know the tune."

"I'm surprised that you recognised it."

There was pause.

"Jeff, I know the words as well, do you want to sing it again?"

"Alright."

* * *

They'd just finished the first verse, and were beginning on the chorus, when the sound of applause reached their ears.

"That was beautiful!" Trent's voice called up, "No, really, your voices sound perfect together."

The singing immediately ceased, and Jeff looked up at Nick.

"I can't tell whether he's joking or not," he said, "Nor how long they've been standing there and listening."

"We heard your cry for help," Wes said from the ground, "Is there a reason why you're sat up a tree and singing loudly?"

"We're stuck," Jeff explained, "The branch below fell away, and it was too far to climb to next one or jump; I think the whole tree is becoming rotten."

"And so you need our help to get down," Wes nodded, "We'll see what we can come up with."

The boys on the ground came closer to the tree and stood directly underneath it, looking up at Nick and Jeff, and trying to judge the distance between them and the ground.

"My father has a ladder in the barn that might reach," Jeff said, "But I don't fancy balancing it on a branch that might possibly collapse at any point."

"No, I have a better idea," Wes said, "David, could you run back to the picnic and fetch the blanket, please?"

The boy in question agreed, and hurried off into the trees.

"Why do we need a blanket?" Nick asked Jeff quietly.

"I guess it's so that we can jump down and land on it safely," the blonde replied.

Nick paled.

"Jump?" he whispered, "I can't jump down there."

"Sure, you can," Jeff said, "I'll go first and show you that it's all fine; Nicky, trust me on this one."

The brunette still looked unsure, but he nodded anyway.

Down below, David had returned with the blanket, and Wes was quickly arranging them so that they were each holding a piece of it. Soon, it was stretched out beneath the tree, and Wes was signalling for Jeff to jump first.

"It's all ready," he said, "Don't worry, we'll catch you."

Jeff shifted himself slightly further along the branch, and then prepared to slip off of it onto the blanket below.

"You know, Wes," he called down, just before he jumped, "If you ruin that blanket, my mum'll be cross."

Wes grinned.

"She'll be more cross if we leave you up a tree," he replied, "Now, hurry up so that we can get Nick down as well."

"Alright," Jeff said, turning around to Nick as he did so. "It'll be fine, Nicky," he added, "See."

And with that, he let go of the branch and fell downwards onto the blanket below. There was a moment of silence, before he was sitting up again and waving madly at Nick, who was looking down at him in concern.

"I'm alive!" he cried enthusiastically, "Your turn now!"

He climbed off the blanket, as Nick shuffled nervously on the branch.

"Just jump and don't think about," Jeff said encouragingly, "Go on, Nicky."

Taking a deep breath, Nick closed his eyes and the branch slid from his grip. There was a feeling of emptiness as he fell, and then the slightly painful contact with the blanket, which bounced a little in the grip of his friends, and then was still.

Cautiously, he opened one eye, and then the other.

Jeff was practically standing right in front of his face.

"You did it, Nicky!" the blonde boy cried, dragging Nick from the blanket, much to the other boys' amusement. He pulled the brunette into a tight hug. "You're so brave, Nicky."

Nick decided that if this would be the response that he got from Jeff, then he would be braver more often.

* * *

"Nick!" Josie Sterling's voice called up the stairs to where she knew that the evacuee was sitting in Jeff's bedroom, most likely reading the latest book that he'd been sent. "There's a letter here that's just arrived from your mother!"

Upstairs, Nick heard the news and scrambled from his bed as fast as he could, rushing down the stairs and skidding into the kitchen on his socks.

"Careful," Mrs Sterling said, as Nick almost collided with her son, who was just entering through the backdoor.

"What is going on in here?" Jeff asked, narrowly avoiding Nick as he came flying past him.

"Letter," Nick cried, taking the offered envelope from Josie Sterling's hand. "Thank you."

"From who?" Jeff asked, taking his boots off and then coming over to stand behind Nick as he sat at the kitchen table.

"My mother," Nick said, trying to get away from Jeff and the fact that he had mud smeared all over him; including a rather cute smudge on one cheek.

"What does she say?" the blonde inquired curiously.

"Jeffrey!" his mother scolded him, "It might be private! And watch out for that tablecloth, I don't want your dirty fingerprints all over it."

"Fine," Jeff grumbled, moving over to the sink to clear himself up, while Nick sat and read his letter.

"She's just talking about London," the brunette said, looking over at his friend, "And the war, really."

Apparently, several of his mother's friends' sons had already left for France and the Belgian border, although he did wonder whether she was supposed to have sent this sort of information in a letter. Celia Duval had also detailed some of the escapades his father had had; including the time that he'd terrified a woman on the London Underground who was talking about how wonderful the war was, by giving her horrific details of his experiences in the trenches twenty-five years previously.

"And she's sending me another book soon," Nick continued, "She asks whether I would prefer Dickens or Hardy this time."

"Go for Dickens," Jeff advised, "Didn't she send you a Hardy two weeks ago?"

Nick nodded.

Suddenly, there was a clatter which interrupted them, as the back door flew open again, and Harry Sterling entered, having returned from his walk into the village with a newspaper in his hand.

"Have you heard?" he said, throwing the paper down onto the table, and causing everyone else in the room to crowd around and try to take a look at it. "We haven't enough men for the war effort apparently; they've introduced conscription fully this time."

"Harry, what do you mean?" Josie asked, bending over the paper so that she could read the headline.

"I mean, it's now compulsory for all twenty to twenty-three year olds to register for military service," Harry Sterling explained, "And eighteen to forty year olds can be called upon at any point."

"But the reserved occupations still stand, don't they, Dad?" Jeff asked, "We're still excluded because we're farmers, right?"

"Of course, son," his father reassured him, "It's just everyone else."

There was a sudden silence as the entire Sterling family turned around and looked at Nick, who was still holding his letter in one hand, and staring back at them.

"I, I have to go and, er, write a reply to my mum," he said hurriedly, before pushing his chair back and running up the stairs to the sanctuary of Jeff's bedroom.

* * *

"What was that all about?" Harry Sterling asked, as Nick's footsteps trailed away upstairs.

"I think the talk of conscription upset him," Josie said gently, "He'll be eighteen next year, and I guess that he doesn't really want to join the armed forces." She turned to her son. "Jeff, dear, do go and see that he's alright."

"Yes, Mum," Jeff nodded, and sprinted up the stairs after his friend.

When he reached his bedroom, he found Nick sitting on the end of his bed and staring out of the window at the horizon.

"So, this war just got a lot more real," he said softly, sitting down gently next to the brunette and looking out of the window as well.

"Yeah," Nick nodded, "It did." He shrugged. "I mean, what am I going to do in the army? My dad has spent his life telling me how awful and horrific war is, and now I'm going to be forced to take an active part in one."

"But surely you knew that this would happen," Jeff said slowly, "They announced that all twenty year olds would have to complete six months military service back in April."

Nick sighed.

"I know," he said, "I just guess that I was hoping that we either wouldn't come to war, or it would be over before I turn twenty; I guess that there isn't a chance of that now, is there?"

"Chamberlain turned down a peace deal from Hitler this month," Jeff said, "I don't think that we're going to back down for a while."

Nick put his head in his hands in defeat.

"I'll have to go, Jeff," he said, "They'll make me, while you stay here and I have to leave you behind."

"I could always go with you," the blonde said suddenly, "Granted, my birthday is a few months after yours, but maybe we could join up together and then we could…"

"No, Jeff," Nick said, firmly, "You're staying here, and you're doing your bit for England in the fields."

"But you'll be out there all alone, Nicky," Jeff said, wrapping an arm around the brunette comfortingly and holding him close.

Nick let out a short laugh.

"Hardly," he said, "I'll be there with the other hundreds of thousands of men, won't I?"

"You know what I mean," Jeff said quietly.

Nick was silent for moment, before speaking up.

"No," he said, "I've got to do this myself. I'm not exactly the only person that this will affect, nor am I the most unlikely candidate for a soldier. Jeff, I can do this; and anyway, we have a few months before we have to face that possibility."

He got up from the bed and headed for the small writing desk in the corner of the room.

"Now, I really do need to write this letter to my mother," he said.

Jeff nodded, and got up as well, instead heading for the door so that he could go and tell his parents that Nick was alright.

"You know, Nicky," he said, pausing under the doorframe, "I quite like a man in uniform."

He walked away to the sound of Nick squeaking in shock and then descending into a fit of coughing.

* * *

**A/N: So, that's set another storyline up...and also, hopefully Hunter will be appearing very soon :)**

**Historical Points:**

**1. Keep The Home Fires Burning is a British patriotic song composed by Ivor Novello, with words by Lena Guilbert-Ford, in 1914 as a way of boosting morale at the beginning of the First World War - obviously here it would have been written before both Nick and Jeff were born, but it's quite possible that they might know it :) **

**2. Conscription was introduced on 21st October 1914 when the British government realised that they still had too few troops for the war effort, previously on 27th April 1914, conscription for 20-21 year olds to register for 6 months military service had been introduced but this was now extended; it's details are exactly the same as what Harry Sterling says that they are here.**

**3. Reserved occupations included farmers, scientists, engineers, doctors, policemen and others - therefore Jeff and his father are safe from being called up.**

**4. Hitler really did offer a peace deal during October 1914, but on the 10th of the month, it was refused by the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain.**

**5. This isn't entirely relevant to this section, but I'm going to mention it anyway, until 1942, anyone under the age of 20 could not be sent abroad as part of the armed forces - in the case of this story, please ignore this :)**

**Thank you for reading, and please leave a review to tell me what you thought or to ask a question about the history behind it :)**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Chapter 8 is here, and I hope that you all enjoy it :) Thank you for the response to this story - please do review because I love to hear what you have to say :)**

**I have posted the oneshot for ****_MeganatShafer_**** and it is called ****_Where Dreams Are Born_****, it's Peter Pan!Niff and I hope that you enjoy it :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.**

* * *

"We can't deal with this any more, Nicky," Sebastian said, leaning against the stone wall of the schoolyard.

It was the beginning of November and Sebastian and Thad had finally had enough with Mrs Clarington.

"She makes us do everything!" Thad said, "We cleaned the entire hallway yesterday evening, and she made us do it again because she couldn't see her face clearly enough in the tiles."

"And seriously, why are we even here?" Sebastian continued, "We were sent away from London in case we got bombed like we did in the last war, and funnily enough, nothing is happening in London, so why can't we go back?"

"It's not that bad down here," Nick protested.

Sebastian scoffed loudly.

"It's alright for you," he said, "You've got Jeff and his parents, who happen to be some of the nicest people on the planet, and even if they weren't, you'd still have Jeff to go running to if you were upset about something."

"But what about Hunter?" Nick suggested, "According to Wes, he should get some leave soon and then maybe he'll come down and sort everything out."

"We can't sit around and wait for Hunter," Sebastian said, "What if he's just as bad as his parents?"

"Jeff said…"

"Of course, Jeff said it! You believe everything that he says, just because you were lucky and ended up with a nice family!"

"Sebastian!" Thad quickly cut in, "This isn't about Nick."

"I know," the other boy cried, "But if the circumstances were any different, then Nick would be supporting us and agreeing with us, but instead, he's trying to make us stay somewhere that's horrible."

"I don't even know what I'm supposed to be supporting you for!" Nick shot back, "I can't exactly go home with you and give Mrs Clarington what for, can I?"

Sebastian sighed heavily.

"Don't be stupid," he said, "I wasn't suggesting that, I just meant that before you met Jeff, you wanted to go home too, and you would have agreed with us."

"I do want to go home," Nick said, but Sebastian just raised an eyebrow at him.

"You couldn't tear yourself away from Jeff if you tried," he said, "But we can, and we're leaving tonight."

"What?" Nick practically exploded, "Leaving tonight? Your parents will never give you permission to do that!"

"Who says we're going to get permission?" Sebastian asked, "And lower your voice, we don't want anyone to know."

"What are you going to do then?" Nick asked, "No, wait…you can't be serious?"

Both Sebastian and Thad nodded.

"We're running back to London, Nick," Thad said, "We've got enough money for train tickets, and when we turn up on our parents' doorsteps, they can't exactly send us back."

"But what about all of us sticking together?" Nick asked sadly, "I thought we were going to stay together and wait this war out? You can't go back to London and leave me here by myself!"

"You can come with us," Sebastian said, "Or you can stay here with Jeff. You can't have both, and you've got to make a choice; your old friends or your new one? Think about it, we'll be round later."

The bell for the end of the day finally rung, and Sebastian and Thad disappeared together in the direction of the Claringtons' house, while Nick trailed over to meet up with Jeff and walk back to the Sterlings' farm.

* * *

"You alright, Nick?" Jeff asked, as they were cleaning out the barn that evening; some of the riding equipment had got muddled, and Jeff had volunteered the pair of them to sort it out, seeing it as a great opportunity to teach Nick more about horses.

"Yeah, why?" Nick said, without looking up at his friend.

"You seem distracted," the blonde boy said, "And I was wondering if you wanted to talk about it?"

"I'm fine," Nick snapped rather too viciously, and Jeff immediately backed off.

"Sorry," he muttered, turning away to sort through the pile of reins which had gathered by the door.

They completed the rest of the task in silence; Nick cursing himself for being so rude to the blonde, while Jeff wondered what he'd done to offend the brunette so much.

They walked back to the farmhouse separately as well, Nick trailing a few feet behind his friend, and didn't speak to each other for the entirety of their tea; neither would make eye contact either.

Mr and Mrs Sterling didn't say anything during the meal, but once Nick had excused himself from the table and had gone up to Jeff's room, they turned to their son for an explanation.

"So, Jeffrey, what's happened between you and Nick?" Harry Sterling asked, leaning back in his chair and studying Jeff's reaction.

The blonde boy continued to swirl his spoon in his custard and not say anything.

"Come on, dear," Josie Sterling added in, "We're just trying to help."

"Nick's not talking to me, Mum," Jeff said forcefully, "We had an argument in the barn and now he won't speak to me."

Both his parents looked at each other and frowned; in the two months that Nick had been staying with them, the two boys had never fought.

"And what was the argument about?" Mrs Sterling asked.

Jeff shrugged.

"How should I know?" he asked, "I thought Nick seemed a bit distracted by something, so I offered to let him talk about it and he snapped at me."

"Maybe he's had some news from home that has upset him," his mother suggested.

Jeff shook his head.

"You know as well as I do that he hasn't received a letter from home in over a week," he said, "And he was fine earlier, it was just after we left school that he started acting strangely."

"Maybe he needs some time to figure something out on his own?" Harry Sterling suggested, which just caused Jeff to sigh in frustration.

"But I don't like the idea of him being upset," he said, "And I want to help him, even if he doesn't want to let me do so."

Again, his parents exchanged glances.

"You've got to let him work things out at his own pace," his mother said, "You can't force him to tell you what's wrong."

"But I have to know," Jeff said, "I can't just go on not talking to him, what if this goes on for days?"

"It won't, son," Harry Sterling said, "Chances are he'll have gotten over it by the time that you go to bed."

But he didn't, and Jeff got into bed that night knowing that Nick still wasn't talking to him. He glanced over at the brunette, who was lying towards the opposite wall, which was strange in itself, since Jeff knew that Nick usually faced him while he slept.

He rolled over and stared at the ceiling instead for a few minutes, but he became restless and had to turn back to watching Nick; he wanted to go over there and hold the other boy tightly and tell him that everything was fine, but he knew that he just couldn't do that.

* * *

Nick was trying to sleep, but his brain kept on running over hundreds of possibilities depending on whether he chose Jeff or whether he chose Thad and Sebastian. He still hadn't made up his mind, he was still debating over who to choose, but he wasn't sure that he was ever going to be able to make a clear choice. He wanted to stay with Jeff, the blonde boy was fast becoming his best friend and he knew that he wanted to be around him for ever if he could; but he'd known Thad and Sebastian ever since he'd started school, and they'd always stood by him, no matter what had happened in his life.

He could hear Jeff shifting around under his own blankets, but he couldn't bring himself to look at the other boy. He wished that he hadn't been so rude to him, but he was so torn between whom to choose that it had clouded his judgement, and was preventing him from really telling Jeff what was going on, especially if the outcome was not one that Jeff would have liked.

It got later and later into the night, and Nick still couldn't sleep. He'd rolled over once just to see what Jeff was doing, but the blonde boy had fallen asleep already, his arm half hanging over the edge of the bed, and the other one clutching his pillow tightly; Nick had a suspicion that he'd cried himself to sleep, and he knew that he must have been the cause of his friend's upset.

It was close on midnight though, when Nick received a shock.

A dull thud echoed around the room as something hit the window. The brunette sat up in bed and stared at the curtains; there was no tree near enough to house for the noise to have been a branch colliding with the window pane, and so it must have been something else.

Cautiously, Nick pushed back his blankets and got up, padding softly over to the window and hovering for a moment.

The sound came again, and this time Nick had an idea of what was happening outside.

Someone was throwing dirt at the window.

Slowly, Nick pulled back to the curtain and then the blackout blinds as well, and peered down at whoever was standing in the yard.

Lit by only a small candle lamp, were the illuminated figures of Sebastian and Thad.

"What are you doing?" Nick hissed, opening the window and leaning out to speak to his friends. He shivered in the cold night air and wished that he'd wrapped a coat around his shoulder before getting up. "It's midnight, why are you outside? And put out that light, you'll get told off if you're seen."

"We told you that we'd been around later," Sebastian said, "We're leaving now, and this light is the only way for us to see where we're going."

Nick's eyes widened, how could he have forgotten that he only had until that night to decide what he was going to do? He'd been so busy worrying about Jeff and who he would choose that he had completely let it slip from his mind that he had such a close deadline.

"Now?" the doubt crept into his voice.

Sebastian nodded.

"Grab your case, Nicky-boy," he grinned, "We're heading back to London."

Nick bit his lip indecisively.

"I can't get out of the house now!" he said, "Everyone else is asleep."

"You know where the key is though?" Sebastian asked, "Just open the door and slip out, no one will hear you."

"They might," Nick said, "And I don't know whether it's a good idea to go sneaking around in the middle of the night."

"So, you're not coming?" Sebastian asked, as Thad laid a restraining hand on his arm before he began yelling at his friend.

Nick didn't know what to do; he had several seconds to decide whether to put everything back into his case and run away with Thad and Sebastian, or to wave them goodbye and get back into bed. If he went with them, there was a good chance that he would never see Jeff again, and the blonde would hate him for just deserting him with no explanation. But if he let Thad and Sebastian go, Thad would understand and Sebastian would resent him for a while, but he'd eventually get over it, and he would see them whenever he visited London.

Suddenly, everything became clear and he knew which option he was going to take.

"No, I'm not coming," Nick said sadly, leaning further out of the window, "I want to stay here with Jeff, but I'll see you if I visit my parents in London. Good luck, and send my regards to my mother, please?"

"Really, Nicky?" Thad asked earnestly, "Is this your final decision?"

Nick nodded solemnly.

"It is," he said, "Write to me when you arrive, won't you?"

Sullenly, Sebastian agreed, while Thad nodded eagerly.

With one last wave, they picked up their cases and headed out of the front yard, while Nick watched them go, and then shut the window as quietly as he could.

Not quietly enough though.

"Nick, what's going on?" Jeff's sleepy voice interrupted him, and he turned around to see the blonde boy sitting up in bed and blinking at him in confusion. "Why are you at the window?"

Nick sighed, he couldn't ignore Jeff now, not now that he'd chosen him over Thad and Sebastian and he had to explain what had happened.

"It was Sebastian and Thad," he said, "They're running away from the Claringtons' and are going back to London; they wanted me to go with them."

"So you're going then?" Jeff asked, immediately assuming that since Nick had been angry with him that he was leaving now. "Do you need help packing your case?" Even when thinking he was about to be abandoned, he was still kind enough to offer his assistance.

Nick shook his head.

"I'm not going, Jeff," he said.

"You're not?"

"No, they gave me the choice between you or them," the brunette explained, "I chose you."

The blonde boy's eyes lit up in delight and gratitude.

"You chose me over your friends?" he asked, sounding rather bewildered.

"You are my friend, Jeff," Nick said, "I think you're my best friend, and I couldn't just leave you behind like that."

He moved away from the window and sat down on Jeff's bed.

"So, I'm staying with you, and I hope you don't mind," he said.

"Of course I don't mind!" Jeff replied, "I didn't want you to go either." He paused. "Was this what was bothering you earlier?"

Nick nodded and shuffled slightly closer to Jeff when the blonde boy extended his arms to him.

"Sebastian told me about what they were going to do at school," he said, falling into Jeff's arms and hugging him tightly. "I panicked because I didn't know what to do or what to choose. I'm sorry I was so rude to you over it, it wasn't your fault that you were concerned."

Jeff held the brunette close to his chest and rested his cheek on the top of his head.

"I know," he said soothingly, "I understand. And I'm sorry too about your friends; you're going to miss them, aren't you?"

Nick nodded.

"You're too kind, Jeffy," he said, "I don't deserve a friend like you."

Jeff smiled.

"No, you're too good for me," he said softly, "You're amazing, Nicky."

But when he looked down, he realised that Nick had already drifted off to sleep, curled up against his chest. He didn't have the heart to wake the brunette up and move him into his own bed when he looked so calm and peaceful.

Instead, as carefully as he could, he shifted his grip on Nick so that he could lie down, with his friend still resting on his chest comfortably. He then pulled the blankets up over to the two of them, and tucked them snugly around them.

Wrapping his arms tightly around Nick's waist, he drifted off to sleep as well.

* * *

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Thad muttered, as he and Sebastian came to the road opposite the stationhouse.

It was almost one in the morning, and in the dark they'd got lost several times. Their lamp had extinguished itself, and they'd had to rely on the sparsely placed streetlamps to guide them, not that they'd been much use, since their lights had either been turned off as well, or were dimmed considerably.

"Don't let Nick's change of mind affect you," Sebastian said, "We're doing the right thing."

Shaking his head, Thad followed the taller boy across the road and round the side of the stationhouse via the gate onto the platform. As was to be expected, the platform was deserted and only a single dimmed streetlight lit it gloomily.

Thad shivered and stepped closer to Sebastian in the hope that he could warm himself up considerably.

Meanwhile, Sebastian was repeating encouragement to himself inside his head; he still hadn't decided whether what they were doing was right yet, but he was stubborn, and once he'd thought of a plan, he went through with it until the end.

In the darkness, there was a muted whistle, and the first few telltale wisps of smoke from a nearby train's engine came creeping along the railway tracks.

The two boys stood back from the edge of the platform and waited for the train to pull in at the station.

As it did so, Thad stepped forward, but Sebastian hurriedly reached out and halted him.

"Not this one," he said, "This one's going in the wrong direction, we want the next one which comes through."

They waited in the half-light of the streetlamp in the hope that the train would just continue through and that no one would alight from the carriages.

But they were not in luck, for the second the train came to a stop, a door in the third carriage was thrown open and two figures stepped out on the platform.

One was tall, and was wrapping a long trench coat tighter around himself, while his companion was smaller, and dressed smartly in a suit and a thicker jacket thrown on top of his clothes.

Thad tried to become as inconspicuous as possible, hiding behind Sebastian a little as he hoped that the men would ignore the two of them and just walk out of the station.

Sebastian, however, saw exactly who it was who had just got off the train and he swore profusely; a rather long string of profanities which never failed to make Thad blush with the rudeness of it all.

"We're in for it now," the taller boy said under his breath, causing Thad to look at him in concern.

"Why?" he asked, "Who is it?"

But before Sebastian could answer, a loud voice interrupted them, and answered Thad's question for him completely.

"I say, Hunter," said the shorter male figure, "Your mother has sent us a welcoming party!"

* * *

**A/N: So, Hunter has arrived - I know that some of you have been waiting for him to turn up :) And Niff made up and have now fallen asleep cuddling, which I thought was cute :)**

**Historical Points:**

**1. Jeff's room has blackout blinds and all of the other external lights are dimmed because of the blackout that was ordered by the British government on 1st September 1939, two days before war broke out - wardens were in place to make sure that people were complying with blackout regulations, and offenders faced prosecution or sanctions.**

**Thank you for reading and please leave a review to tell me what you thought or to ask a question about the history behind this story :)**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Wow, Chapter 9 already - it honestly doesn't feel like that long ago that I was starting this story! Thank you for your lovely response to this story - I hope that you're enjoying it as much as I'm enjoying writing it :)**

**Also, I'm still looking for some cover artwork for all of my stories, apart from this one and ****_Second Star to the Right_****, and if anyone does want to do some, then I would love that :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.**

* * *

"I say, Hunter," said the shorter male figure, "Your mother has sent us a welcoming party!"

Thad peeked out from where he was hiding behind Sebastian at the sound of the familiar voice, which was joined by the laughter of the other figure.

"Wes?" he cried, "What are you doing back so early?"

He rushed out from behind his friend and ran to hug the older boy with almost as much enthusiasm as Jeff had done when Wes had last come home. He'd been away again, working at the laboratory, but he'd mentioned in a letter that he'd be home again soon; no one had known quite how soon though.

"Thad," he greeted the younger boy, "Would you like to tell me why you and Sebastian are standing on the platform at one in the morning with your cases, please?"

Thad stood back a bit and looked at the ground sheepishly.

"We were running away," he mumbled quietly.

"Speak up," Wes said, "We can't hear you."

"We were running away," Sebastian spoke this time, coming to stand next to Thad, "We couldn't stand it anymore."

"Sebastian," Wes shook his head, "I'm disappointed in you, though I'm not entirely surprised."

The man beside Wes smiled suddenly, and stepped forward with his hand outstretched.

"You must be the evacuees that my mother wrote to me about," he said, shaking first Sebastian's and then Thad's hands. "I'm Hunter."

Sebastian's mouth dropped open in the realisation that he'd just been caught running away by the son of the people he was trying to run from; and Thad just looked up at Hunter in awe.

"Yes, they are," Wes said, "But it looks like they were just trying to leave."

To the evacuees' surprise, Hunter then began to laugh.

"I don't blame you," he said, "Why else do you think that I joined the air force? To get away from my mother as fast as possible!"

"Please try not to encourage them," Wes said, "Especially not Sebastian."

"Why not?" the boy in question cried indignantly. "There's nothing wrong with me!"

"Sure, there's not," Wes rolled his eyes, while Hunter laughed again.

"I like you," he said to Sebastian, before addressing both of them. "In fact, I like both of you. Now, come along, I'd best be taking you back home then; hopefully the fact that I'm there might make my mother forget that you'd even disappeared."

"No, we're going back to London," Sebastian said stubbornly, "We're not going back."

"Yes, you are," Wes said firmly, "If you go back to London, your parents will either send you straight back or send you somewhere that could be worse. Look, Hunter's here now, and he won't let his parents order you around anymore."

"How can you be sure?" Sebastian asked doubtfully, as he fell into step beside the older boy as they walked out of the station; Thad and Hunter were just a few yards ahead of them, talking eagerly.

"Because I know Hunter," Wes said, "Why do you think he joined the air force? It wasn't just to escape his mother, like he says it was, it's because he wants to defend people and protect them; he'll protect you two from his parents."

Sebastian looked ahead at Hunter for a moment, as though trying to make sure that what Wes was saying was true.

"I know you're doubting my judgement," Wes spoke up again, "And I know that you think that maybe you won't like Hunter, or he won't be as wonderful as Jeff says he is, but trust me, you're going to enjoy having him around."

He paused for a moment to smile mysteriously at Sebastian.

"Anyway, I think you'll find that he's just your type," he said, "And you're his."

He winked, and then hurried forward to speak to Thad, leaving Sebastian behind feeling very confused and baffled by Wes' sudden declaration. What did he mean by Hunter being his type? No, wait, he knew exactly what he meant, and he couldn't help a tiny bubble of hope rising within him that it was true.

He didn't have any more time to consider it though, as Hunter suddenly appeared next to him.

"So, apart from my old mum," he said, "Are you enjoying the countryside?"

Sebastian kicked at some gravel a little.

"Not really," he admitted, "I miss London and the city."

Hunter nodded.

"I understand," he said, "I was like you when I was your age, I always wanted to get out and see the world; I couldn't wait to leave home. But you know what? I find myself missing the countryside now, the city is so fast moving and there's no time to catch your breath, especially not now ever since the war started. Down here, nothing much has changed, and people do everything at their own speed."

Sebastian nodded slowly.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"I'll be twenty in the new year," Hunter replied, "You're seventeen, I assume?"

"Eighteen in May," the younger boy said, "I heard about the conscription."

"Of course, I'd forgotten that had been brought in," Hunter said, "Jeffy'll be pleased, since he's in a reserved occupation, so is Wes. What about you though?"

Sebastian thought for a moment.

"I don't think I'd make a very good soldier," he said, "But I was thinking of the Navy, if I have to; I was going to become a lawyer like my father."

"Maybe they could find a place for you in the War Office," Hunter mused, "They're looking for fresh and younger minds at the moment, I heard."

"But I have no military experience," Sebastian said, "I'd have no idea how to be a benefit to them."

"No need," Hunter smiled, "Your father is a lawyer, and you could go in for a legal aspect, they're in need of people for that area as well, think about it."

Sebastian grinned broadly up at the older boy; he liked him already and he thanked Wes mentally for not letting him run away back to London before he'd had the chance to meet Hunter.

"Is there a reason that you've arrived in the middle of the night?" he asked suddenly, and Hunter laughed yet again.

"I left the air base as soon as I could," he explained, "Which happened to be around three hours ago. I got the train up to London to meet Wes, and we came straight down. It's a good thing we did, otherwise we wouldn't have seen you." He paused. "Come on, let's go and catch up with Wes and Thad, and then we'd better get ready to face my mother."

* * *

They arrived outside of the Clarington household half an hour later, having said goodbye to Wes further up the road, who had then headed onwards to his own house.

"Right," Hunter said, as they were standing outside of the house, "I've got a key, I'm going to let you two in, and you must get upstairs as quickly and as quietly as you can. I'll give you five minutes to get into your pyjamas, and then I'm going to announce that I'm home."

Sebastian and Thad nodded.

Hunter slipped the key into the lock noiselessly, and then opened the door as far as he dared without letting it creak, which he knew that it was prone to do if opened too far or too quickly.

As soon as it was open enough, the two evacuees slipped in, removing their shoes and then running up the stairs quietly in their socks. They disappeared into their shared room, and quickly changed back into their pyjamas, slipping silently into their beds and bringing the covers up to their chins.

They were just in time before Hunter called out loudly:

"Mum! Dad! I'm home again!" He punctuated the sentence by throwing his kit bag onto the table with an excessively loud thud.

Across the hall, Sebastian and Thad heard the sound of Mrs Clarington practically throwing herself out of bed and hurriedly dressing herself, before thundering towards their room in her hurry.

She knocked on their door rather violently, and yelled at them to get up and look presentable, before she ran down the stairs.

"Hunter!" she cried, "My darling boy! You're home!"

Hunter winced as she threw her arms around him and smothered him with kisses.

"Nice to see you too, Mum," he said, trying to wriggle out of her grip, but it was to no avail.

Slowly, Sebastian and Thad made their way downstairs, noting that Mr Clarington still hadn't made an appearance.

"Hunter, I want you to meet our two evacuees," Mrs Clarington said, finally releasing her son from her grip and standing back once she'd heard the boys' footsteps on the stairs. "This is Sebastian, and this is Thad."

Politely, Hunter shook both boys' hands and winked secretively at both of them as he did so.

"I'm sorry that the house is a mess," Mrs Clarington cut in, "I did try to get the boys to clean it but you know what boys are like, and city boys are so much more lazy…"

"Alright, Mum," Hunter stopped his mother mid-sentence, "The house looks spotless, and I'd say that Sebastian and Thad have done a wonderful job."

He shot the two boys a smile, while his mother opened and closed her mouth several times as she tried to find a reply, but fortunately, she was saved from having to answer by the sound of her husband finally making his way downstairs to greet his son.

"Good morning, son," Mr Clarington said gruffly, shaking Hunter's hand, "Bit early in the morning, isn't it?"

"I came straight home as soon as I got off from my shift," Hunter explained.

"Well, some of us were sleeping," his father commented, "But how is the old Royal Flying Corps?"

Hunter sighed.

"It's the Royal Air Force now, Dad," he said, "And has been since 1918. But yes, we're fine."

"In my day, it was the Flying Corps," Mr Clarington was insistent, "Old habits die hard, my son."

Hunter had to stop himself from rolling his eyes and shaking his head; he knew that his father had never seen active service, instead, he'd served as a recruitment officer for the Flying Corps, since an old rugby injury had ruled him out of the armed forces.

"Well, you'll be wanting a good night's rest, I imagine," Mrs Clarington said, patting her son on the back. "Why don't you head on up to bed? Thad and Sebastian can go with you. And, tomorrow morning, I'll make you some bacon and eggs, your favourite, for your breakfast; I would get the boys to make it for you, but I'd prefer it if I cooked for you so as to guarantee the quality of it, is that alright, dear?"

Hunter smiled.

"As much as I'd love to try some of Thad and Sebastian's cooking, Mum," he said, "I agree with you, they need a lie-in as well. Good night, then."

He hauled his kitbag off of the table and shouldered it, before ushering the two evacuees up the stairs in front of him.

"We'll go round and see Jeff tomorrow morning," Hunter said, "It'll be a good excuse to get out of the house, and anyway, Mum doesn't approve of him, which is even better."

He winked conspiratorially at the two boys, and then disappeared down the hallway to his own bedroom.

Thad and Sebastian exchanged glances, and then burst out laughing at the thought of annoying Mrs Clarington as much as possible; it was going to be good having Hunter around.

* * *

The next morning, Josie Sterling had made breakfast for both Nick and Jeff before they went out onto the farm, and she was desperately hoping that the two boys would have resolved their differences, and made up again by the time that they came downstairs.

She waited for them both to appear, but after half an hour, their breakfast had gone cold and there was still no sign of them.

"Where can they have got to?" she wondered, "Jeff, especially, rarely oversleeps, even when he doesn't need to get up, he's awake."

After several more minutes, she decided to go and see what was keeping them. She hurried up the stairs, and knocked gently on Jeff's bedroom door. After receiving no answer, she assumed that they were still asleep, and pushed the door open as quietly as she could.

The first thing she saw was Nick's empty bed. She frowned, and looked over to see what Jeff was doing, and discovered the two boys curled up together, fast asleep.

"Harry!" she called softly, hearing her husband returning from his early morning work on the farm. "Harry, come up here quickly and see this."

"What is it?" Harry Sterling asked, hanging his coat up on a peg and removing his cap, before coming up the stairs to join his wife.

"Aren't they so precious?" Josie Sterling cooed, pointing at Nick and Jeff, who were still completely oblivious to the fact that they now had an adoring audience.

"They do look rather sweet," Mr Sterling said, and this was a compliment, since he very rarely said anything like that.

"It's a shame that we don't have a camera," Mrs Sterling said, "I want to take a picture of them."

"You could always run down to Mr Allen's," her husband joked, "He's got one."

"Too late, I think Jeff's waking up."

The two adults quickly hushed themselves as their son blinked a few times and then remembered where he was.

Jeff awoke to a warm and heavy feeling on his chest. He panicked for a moment, and then the memory of earlier that night returned to him and he looked down at Nick, who was still fast asleep.

Carefully, he bent his head a little and kissed the brunette softly on the top of his head, Nick shifted in his sleep and sighed happily.

The sounds of his parents, or at least his mother, cooing over him, made him freeze, his lips just a few inches away from Nick's head.

"Mum? Dad?" he squeaked, "What are you doing?"

"We came to check on you when you didn't come down for breakfast," his mother explained. "It seems that you were too busy being slept on."

"Son, did something happen in here last night?" his father asked, trying to sound serious but failing a little.

"No, of course not!" Jeff squeaked again, sounding mortified. "Nick was upset, I was comforting him and then he fell asleep."

"And you didn't move him to his own bed?"

"He looked too peaceful!"

Josie Sterling grinned.

"He still looks rather comfortable," she said, "I'm surprised that we haven't woken him up."

Jeff laughed a little, though he was trying to not to move too much for Nick's sake.

"He could sleep through anything," he said, "If we ever have an air raid, he'll sleep through the siren!"

This time Harry Sterling laughed as he descended the stairs.

"Well, if he does," he said, "You can carry him out to the shelter, Jeff."

Mrs Sterling joined in with the laughter as well, and followed her husband back down to the kitchen, leaving Jeff alone with a sleeping Nick once again.

The blonde boy threw himself back onto his pillow, feeling slightly embarrassed that he'd been caught kissing the top of Nick's head and cuddling the other boy by his parents, but then again, at least they'd seemed to be alright with it. It was just Nick that Jeff was worried about, the boy had no idea what had just happened, and would probably be absolutely horrified to know that they'd been seen.

Jeff was just wondering which method he'd have to implement to wake Nick up, when the brunette lifted his head up and started in shock when he saw Jeff smiling down at him.

"I fell asleep on you, didn't I?" he asked, "Sorry, you should have just pushed me back onto my own bed."

Jeff waved his apologies away.

"It's fine," he said, "You're quite comfortable, actually, and we both slept so well that we managed to miss waking up for our farm duties this morning."

"We did?" Nick said, blinking rapidly in an attempt to get his eyes to focus properly. "I bet your dad won't be pleased with that."

"Oh, he didn't mind," Jeff said, stopping himself short too late.

Nick narrowed his eyes.

"Jeff," he said slowly, "Did your parents come in here and talk to you?"

Jeff bit his lip and looked rather sheepish.

"Maybe," he said, as Nick ducked his head in embarrassment, "They thought that us, you know, cuddling was cute, though." He didn't mention the kiss.

"Is it too late for me to run back to London with Thad and Sebastian?" Nick asked, "I can't ever show my face in your house again."

Jeff laughed.

"It's fine, I was just as embarrassed as you are," he said, "Now, let's hurry up and get downstairs so that we can have some breakfast."

Nick groaned, but shifted himself off of the blonde, muttering numerous apologies as he did so.

"Nick, it's fine," Jeff reassured him, "We're best friends, and best friends fall asleep on each other all the time, right?"

"I think that's girls," the brunette replied as he hunted through a drawer while trying to find a clean shirt.

"But why not boys as well? I mean, I didn't mind; I thought that it was quite nice."

Nick blushed even more, and scurried away into the bathroom to get changed.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Nick found himself trying to sneak down into the Sterlings' kitchen without being noticed by anyone. Unfortunately, Jeff's mother was practically waiting for him by the kitchen table, and he blushed profusely as soon as he saw her.

"Oh, come, come," she said, "Don't be embarrassed, dear, I thought you and Jeffrey looked very adorable."

That just made Nick want to curl up and hide away for a while. Instead, he squeaked in panic, much in the same way that Jeff had, and quickly bit into the piece of toast that had been put in front of him.

"Morning, Mum!" Jeff's cheerful voice carried down the stairs suddenly, and took the attention away from Nick, much to his relief.

"Morning, dear," Josie Sterling said, "Your breakfast is on the table."

"Is Nick down there?"

"He is; I'm having fun embarrassing him."

"Mum!"

Mrs Sterling laughed as she cleared Nick's plate away and Jeff finally made an appearance downstairs.

Nick looked up at him as he sat down next to him, and tried to keep the blush from his cheeks, while the blonde boy just looked like he wanted to laugh.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the back door, and all three of them looked up in surprise.

"I wonder who that is," Josie Sterling said, going over, "It can't be your father; he'd know that it was unlocked."

She opened the door, and grinned when she saw who was standing on the other side.

"Jeff, I think it's someone for you," she said, stepping back so that Jeff could see who it was.

Jeff flew up from the table in a second.

"Hunter!" he cried, "You're back!"

The older boy had only a moment to react, before he had an armful of Jeff, who was hugging him as tightly as possible.

"And Nick," Josie Sterling added, "I think there are some people here for you too."

Nick looked up in surprise.

"Really?" he asked, frowning in confusion as Thad and Sebastian suddenly stepped into the Sterlings' kitchen as well. "How come you're still here?"

Sebastian smiled sheepishly.

"Wes and Hunter found us," he said, "And made us go home." He paused and came a little closer to where Nick was sitting and leant down to whisper: "I'm glad they did, have you _seen_ Hunter?"

Nick grinned, knowing that this would lead to some very unsubtle episodes of Sebastian attempting to flirt with the older boy.

"Well," he said, "I'm glad that you did decide to stay; we've got plenty of adventures to still have in the country! And, I'm sorry that I chose Jeff over you."

"Don't worry, it's fine," Thad spoke up, "We understand why you did it."

"And anyway," Sebastian added, "If I'd had the choice between staying here or going back to London with you, I would have chosen Hunter over you."

Nick's sarcastic reply was lost in Jeff's sudden announcement that Hunter needed to meet the brunette.

"Hunter, this is Nick, our evacuee," he said, "Nick, this is Hunter."

"It's nice to finally meet you," Hunter said, shaking Nick's hand, "Jeff's told me a lot about you."

Nick blushed for what seemed like the hundredth time that morning.

"Has he?" he asked, "What has he said?"

"Now, that would be telling," the older boy winked, "But the majority of his recent letters have been about you."

Nick opened his mouth to reply, but couldn't find a suitable remark, and anyway, he was saved by Jeff bounding up to them and pulling him out of his chair.

"Is Wes home again too?" the blonde asked excitedly.

Hunter nodded.

"Good, then we can all go on an adventure!" Jeff cried happily, "Come on! Nick, grab your coat and put your shoes on, we're going out."

The brunette complied, lagging behind the others a little as Jeff dragged them all up the garden path.

"You'd better take these," Mrs Sterling said, handing over two packed lunches to him, as well as Jeff's satchel. "Since Jeff seems to have completely forgotten. Oh, and take his coat, will you? He's gone out in just an old jumper and he'll get cold once he calms down."

"Of course," Nick nodded, taking Jeff's coat from the hook on the wall, and then deciding to throw in the boy's cap as well, just in case he wanted that too.

He thanked Mrs Sterling for the food, and then he ran after the others.

Josie Sterling stuck her head out of the door and yelled after her son:

"Jeffrey! Please don't forget that you have school in half an hour, excitement does not count as a reason for being late!"

* * *

**A/N: And for those of you who had been waiting for Hunter...there he is! :) And like Mrs Sterling said, aren't Niff just so precious? :)**

**Historical Points:**

**1. The RAF (Royal Air Force) was formed on 1st April 1918, as a joining of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service towards the end of the First World War; it was the first air force of its kind in the world, and the RAF is today the oldest independent air force - there'll be more about it in the next chapter, as well as further on in the story :)**

**Thank you for reading, and please leave a review to tell me what you thought or to ask a question about the history behind it :)**


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